Recycling tips: Leave on the bottle cap or pop and toss the top?

It's a small matter, but a detail dedicated recyclers want to get right. Should you remove the cap of a plastic bottle before recycling it? How about the lid of a metal container? How about the lid of an aseptic package or drink box?

Bill Wayson, a retired computer systems analyst living in Ventura, is one of the many local dedicated recyclers following the news and wanting to be sure about the rules for correct recycling so our recyclables will be as marketable as possible. By email, he asked me about the recycling rules regarding lids for a variety of containers.

To be sure of the latest rules, I contacted Daniel Marks, CEO of Berg Mill Supply Company, a company marketing much of the material collected from curbside and commercial programs in Ventura County. The answer for plastic bottles is the same as it has been for nearly a decade.

Marks explained, "Soda bottle lids are made from a different plastic than soda bottles, but grinding is one of the first steps at the plastic recycling factory. A simple sink/float tank separates the two types of plastic." The polypropylene from lids floats, and the polyethylene terephthalate from the body of the bottle sinks.

With milk jugs, the lid and the container are similar types of plastic, so they can be processed together. Other containers may be made from different types of plastics, and in some cases, lids can be hard to separate, but recycling plastics other than bottles labeled #1 or #2 is difficult for many reasons in the current market.

For steel containers, such as shaving cream, the answer is different. Metal is not run through grinders prior to recycling; instead, it is crushed. Recycling is accomplished through melting the metal into a molten mass so it can be poured into new forms. Leaving the lid on in this case will result in the plastic being burned. When temperatures are high enough, pollution from burning can be minimized, but the purpose of recycling is the reduction of pollution in manufacturing processes, so leave the lids off steel containers. Also, empty aerosol cans before recycling.

For the above two types of recycling, much of the recycling is done in the United States. Plastic from bottles, for example, is recycled at Pinnpack, in Oxnard, and at Polytainer, in Simi Valley.

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Similarly, domestic manufacturers made 82 million metric tons of steel in 2017, "enough to form a continuous steel beam that could circle the globe eight times" and 68% "of that steel was made from scrap metal," according to TheConversation.com, quoting 2018 statistics from the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries.

In contrast, recycling of drink boxes and aseptic packages is accomplished through export. Separation of layers of plastic, metal, and paper requires labor and water resources more available outside the United States. Ventura County sends these materials to India for recycling. This makes the lid question more difficult to answer.

At first, Marks speculated the answer might be "no," since he knew the lids would have no value but would require labor to separate. But then he checked with the buyer, who assured him the recyclers in India, out of concern for the environment, do separate and transport the plastic lids to recyclers.

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Andrea Gomez, who lives in Ventura and is working on fulfilling her New Year's resolution to be more "planet friendly" by recycling correctly, sent me an email asking if drink boxes and aseptic packages are even recycled.

The answer is, with or without lids, these items are recycled only in areas of Ventura County collected by Harrison Industries or Athens Services. In other areas, lack of specialized separation equipment, the timing of commodity contracts, or other factors make both the lid and the container itself unrecyclable.

Bottom line on including lids:

David Goldstein is an analyst with Ventura County Public Works and can be reached at 805-658-4312 or [email protected].