Tee Cee's Tip
Dear Tee Cee,
My friend and I disagree about recycling soda bottle caps. I swear I have seen recycling guidelines before that say to remove plastic caps from a soda bottle because they’re made of a different type of plastic. She says you’re supposed to screw the cap back on. Are the caps recyclable? Did the rules change?
— Thanks, Aaron
Dear Aaron, Soda bottle caps CAN be recycled, but only if they’re screwed onto the empty bottle when placed in your recycling cart. Small caps can’t go into the cart loose because they are small enough to fall through screens designed to remove broken pieces of glass from all the rest of your recyclables. If they fall down with the glass, they will contaminate recycled glass.
You’re correct — plastic soft drink bottles and caps are made from different types of plastic. Bottles are made from #1 PET, and lids are made from either #2 HDPE or #5 PP. But they can be recycled together. In the recycling process, bottles with caps are shredded together and then washed. In the washing process, the PET will sink, and the PP and HDPE will float. They can then be separated to be recycled into new items.
You’re right that years ago, recycling companies could not process plastic bottle caps and the direction to recyclers was to remove and trash them. But technology has since evolved and continues to evolve so that more types of packaging can be recycled more easily.
It isn’t just plastic bottle caps that can be confusing. Here’s everything you need to know about recycling all the different types of container lids and caps: SMALL BOTTLE CAPS FROM
GLASS BOTTLES >> Metal bottle caps are too small to be sorted at a recycling facility as they too fall through glass screens. However, they can be collected separately and recycled as scrap metal at Eco-cycle’s Center for Hard-to-recycle Materials. METAL LIDS FROM GLASS JARS >> If the lid is bigger than a credit card (large enough to pass over the glass screen), it can be separated from the glass jar and recycled loose in your curbside cart.
PLASTIC TUB LIDS >> Lids from plastic tubs (e.g. dairy tubs) and jars can be separated and recycled loose in your cart. Caps on paper cartons: Plastic caps on emptied and Unflattened paper cartons (e.g., soy milk and orange juice cartons) should be screwed back on to the carton. It helps to keep the carton three-dimensional, so it is not mistaken for printing paper.
To find all the details on how and what to recycle, visit longmontcolorado.gov or ecocycle.org.