How does recycling work? Is it a hoax?

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I’ve always wondered how legit recycling is and if it’s worth the effort to personally do it. (I live in a high-rise and I can toss my garbage down a chute on my floor, but have to bring my recycling down to the ground floor.) In college I literally saw them dump the recycling bin and trash bin into the same truck, but I know I see dedicated recycling trunks around.

I was told “soiled” recycling can’t be used i.e. greasy used pizza boxes, is that true? Recycling dumpsters are gross, isn’t everything soiled?

When companies sell a product that’s “made from recycled products” how truthful is that? Is it their own recycled products or do they source it?

Whats the deal with the recycling triangles and numbers on a product? If I recycle a number that I shouldn’t, does it ruin everything else in that dumpster?

How does any one/machine feasibly sort recycling? It seems like a herculean task.

Recycling, fact or fiction?

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30 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

As for your made from x% of recycled materials falls under advertising so to lie would be false advertising. The numbers in triangles on plastic tells the recycler what type of plastic it is made from. Most places will sort them out at their plant. Plastics get chopped up into pellets and then shipped to be melted and pressed into new containers, but all have a limit on how many times they can be recycled. Aluminum has the highest number of times it can be recycled and retain its strength, it mostly just gets reformed into new sheets each time.

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