Ever feel the need to crush things before you recycle them? Well, it’s often the right instinct, as it conserves space and is more efficient for pick-up by recyclers. Plastic bottles, for instance, are generally best crushed (and left with caps on) when thrown in the recycling bin.
Aluminium cans, however, are a rare exception, as Popular Science noted last week. It turns out that if cans are crushed or flattened, you’re often making the jobs of recycling facilities that much harder.
According to Matt Meenan, the senior director of public affairs at the Aluminium Association, when crushed cans enter the recycling stream, they become more difficult to sort out and can contaminate other recyclable materials.
A flattened soda can can be sorted as “paper,” for instance, thus contaminating the paper recyclables. “Crushed aluminium cans may fall through the spaces of the sorting equipment and either be lost entirely or improperly sorted,” he added.
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This does, however, come with the caveat that it may depend on your recycling infrastructure. Recycling programs operate on one of two methods: single-stream recycling (the kind where you throw all your recyclables in a single bin at the curb) versus multi- or dual-stream recycling (where you separate them into different bins at the curb).
If you’re in a city with multi-stream recycling, you’re in luck. Whether crushed or not, you’re fine to recycle them in any way you want.
So what should you do about your cans in question? First, you can determine what kind of curbside recycling program operates in your neighbourhood. It’s pretty easy. If you’re throwing your separated glass, paper, and plastic together in one bin at the curb, you’re participating in a single-stream program.
And if it isn’t obvious already, it’s as simple as making sure you don’t attempt to crush or flatten cans as you throw them into the recycling bin. Again, if you’re single-stream or just unsure, err on the side of caution and leave them uncrushed. A dent is probably fine (they don’t need to be pristine), but resist the urge to crush.
Comments
2 responses to “Don’t Crush Cans Before Recycling Them”
So crushed cans are a bad idea – except when they’re not?
highly likely US generated content republished in AU. Most, if not all, of the recycling centres that form part SA’s great recycling system from the 70s, will accept cans in any condition. Most people who recycle a lot, have a “can crusher” from Bunnings (https://www.bunnings.com.au/morgan-heavy-gauge-steel-can-crusher_p4520263) for that exact purpose.
Here in NSW, cans that you intend to get the deposit back on cannot be crushed, as the return and Earn machines don’t accept crushed cans (https://returnandearn.org.au/how-it-works/containers/).
The information above may be useful for some in relation to their home recycling, but I’ve not seen any “multi- or dual-stream recycling” in Australia. Council’s hanve enough issues picking up the rubbish already without having more trucks for different bin types.