A Guide to Preparing your Bottles for the Recycling Depot

If you had calculated the bottles, you planned to take to the recycling depot, and most of them are damaged, your calculations will flop. As a result, your valid bottles will reduce; hence, the money you planned to make would reduce too.

To avoid disappointments at your recycling depot, here’s how you should prepare your bottles:

Clean Them

Many people make the major mistake ofbringing their bottles to the recycling depot and leaving them dirty. Drink, skincare, and dishwashing bottles are some of the most common bottles people recycled. If you want to reuse a bottle for any purpose, would you reuse it in the state you left it, or you’d clean it up? 

You’d clean it up to wash all remnants of its former use- it’s the same reason you’ll have to make sure the bottles are clean before taking it to your Adelaide recycling depot. Bottles have to be cleaned of all traces of their past life- nobody would buy recycled items if they were dirty. 

You can remember to always clean your bottles by keeping clean and dirty bottles in separate boxes. Then, every weekend or whenever you’re free, wash all dirty bottles and transfer them to the clean sack.

Ensure All The Bottles Are In Good Condition

All bottles have to be in premium condition before you get to the recycling depot. Crushed bottles interfere in the recycling process and can contaminate the other bottle. When bottles are pressed, it makes them hard to identify,  and this confuses the sorting machines.

The best thing you can do is only recycle bottles in premium condition- without dents or scratches- to be on the safe side. Then, you can take the destroyed bottles to yourrecycling bin for curbside collection.

Remove The Caps

One thing that confuses people who plan to recycle is whether they should remove the caps of their bottles. Usually, it depends on the recycling depot you’re going to. But of course, some would prefer removing the caps off the bottles, so some don’t care either way. 

Most recycling depots, however, choose when the bottles are cap-less. This is because the caps interfere when bottles are crushed while recycling due to the pressure inside the bottle. If the caps are left off, they can shoot off and hit an unsuspecting worker or jam a machine. 

A more effortless solution would just be to recycle the caps with the bottles, right? Wrong. Caps are usually made from materials different from the bottles, so they can’t be recycled together.

Caps are way too small to be recycled separately; you would have to gather thousands of bottles to get enough caps. A good recycling depot will significantly reduce how long you have to spend bringing in your bottles. Then, once you’ve prepared them, you can go on about your day.

Thorntons Recycling is the best depot to recycle within Adelaide. Are you confused about how you should prepare your bottles? Contact us.