Should the lids from pasta sauce and such go in the tin recycling or thrown in the garbage? When I recycle I always wonder if I should be throwing the lids from glass bottles,many of which are pasta jars,should be thrown in the tin recycling or not.
The lids are metal on the outside,but inside there seems to be a slight rubber and plastic coating.
I like to recycle as much as possible but I don%26#039;t want to throw stuff in recycling that will mess up the mix.
Oh and please no answers like call the recycling center in your local town. I called a couple of times and got completely different answers each time.

Additional Details

6 months ago

To Recycler:
These are metal lids,so are you saying I should throw out the metal lids? I ask because I see you mentioning plastic lids.
And someone also mentioned how towns don%26#039;t all recycle plastic. Well we do but in one neighborhood they pick up and another they don%26#039;t. We have big bins at the town hall for them if you want to take them there either way. But it%26#039;s very confusing,do they or don%26#039;t they pick up?
We also recycle AA,AAA and so on batteries. They have a barrel for them. I have a big %26quot;battey bank%26quot; that I bought that came with new batteries,knowing that I would then use it to keep my old batteries for recycling and I then take it to city hall to empty. That works well.

Best Answer

Garbage is the answer for this one.
I am a recycling professional in Massachusetts. We tell people not to recycle small things like lids and caps because they just fall through the sorting machinery at the recycling facility. They are too small to be effectively baled - they might just fall out of the bale. (Recyclables are sorted according to type and baled together for shipment to a manufacturer of goods.) Also, lids are often made up of a combination of materials which makes it difficult to recycle them.

Also, it is difficult for recyclers and manufacturers to tell what kind of plastic some plastic lids are. There is no recycling symbol and #, so it may be hard for them to identify.

Recycling is all about large volumes of similar materials and caps and lids are too small to be counted as volume, and the materials may be unknown or a composite which makes them difficult to recycle.

So you should remove all lids and caps before recycling any plastic or glass bottle, jar, etc. (Except maybe the large lids from laundry detergent: remove those and recycle them.) Most small lids should be thrown away, or reused. Metal lids can be recycled, because the magnet at the recycling facility will attract them and they will be handled more efficiently.

For a video of operations at a recycling facility and a website that may answer some questions, see: www.springfieldmrf.org
Also helpful is www.earth911.org - has links to local recycling information for your town or state. www.springfieldmrf.org
earth911.org

Asker's Rating:

Wow you were all great! From why I should to why I shouldn%26#039;t and the fact that those answers vary so much was pointed out to! I picked this answer,because of his job and the websites he pointed out helped me. My local site actually will send out a free kit including a canvas shopping bag!Thanks

Other Answers (13)

• We live on base where it is mandatory that we recycle therefore they have guidelines for us to use. They tell us to remove the lids from all containers and throw them in the garbage. Hope this helps!
• Thinking about it and the recycling process the metal goes through, ( it is heated up at a high temp. to melt the metal.) So I would think the rubber or whatever material is inside the lid would be melted away since it probably has a lower melting point. Put it in the recycling bin anyways. All recyclables go through a processing center and are sorted and any items that don%26#039;t belong in the recycling stream are removed by workers as the items pass by them on a conveyor belt. If those aren%26#039;t recyclable then the workers will remove them and discard them.
• I always just throw mine in the garbage just because,as you said,it does have that rubber bit on the inside.
• unless told not to, toss it in. The plastics will be removed in the melt down or earlier stages int he process.
  THEN you move on to making your own pasta sauce from scratch and avoiding making the waste in the first place. Compost those scraps for your garden, where you can grow your own tomatoes, and you are waaaay ahead of the game!!!
  ;}
  Kay
• I throw them in the recycling.. .and i dont%26#039; think i%26#039;ve had a problem.. with them..
  
  but than again.. different areas seem to recylce different things
• I have always heard that they should just be thrown away and after trying to find some info, they all say the same thing--glass containers should be rinsed and lids should be discarded.
• I regard the lids etc like a tin can, its made from tin so therefore it goes in with the tin.
  Like someone already mentioned it all gets re-melted anyway.
  I also think that its high time households should get recycling bins for plastics as well, the government goes on so much about plastics yet they havent introduced bins for plastics.