Rants, Fails, and Bummers — April 19–May 02

I am always amazed at how little the average person knows about recycling. I work in the US as packaging engineer - I deal with paper, films, and most types of plastic and part of my job is working with our local MRF and APR on recyclability.

Yet I constantly see my friends (well educated people) who are constantly recycling wrong in a way our MRF can't process AND IT JUST MAKES ME SO DISSAPOINTED. Don't put your recycling in a bag - the people on the line are forced to throw those away if they don't have time to open them. Don't put anything smaller than 2x2 inches, it will fall through the grate. Don't stuff your items inside of each other (one friend insists on putting his beer cans back in the box), the cans that don't get shaken out will weigh down the paper so it doesn't get sorted, so then it gets rejected. Empty your liquids out, full bottles can mess with the scanners. Stop recycling colored PET bottles, the MRF can't do it yet. Stop wishcycling, no matter how much you want your therform PP to be recycled, they can't process it here. It is so frustrating because it is literally my job to work on this type of stuff and yet I can't even get people close to me to follow the basics.

/r/ZeroWaste Thread