We recycle just about everything there is to be recycled, including almost all of our food waste. Is there a point where more resources are used to recycle than there are resources saved?
I think of this every time I rinse a tomato juice bottle. How much water should I use to get all the dried juice off the lip of the bottle? Do I use quarts and quarts of running water to get a tenth-ounce of dried juice off? Do I spend five minutes to do so? I just make a good effort and assume the recycling process will take care of the residue. Same with olive containers. It takes lots of soap and water to get all the olive oil off.
I just thought of this again when recycling a shampoo bottle. Even with it stored upside down, I wasn't getting any more shampoo out. The bottle has a fancy snap-lid that I used a letter opener to get off. Then I saw there was probably a teaspoon of thick shampoo at the bottom that didn't flow very quickly. How much water do I use to get that residue out before I put it in the recycling bin? With lots and lots of foam coming out on the sixth try, I said this is ridiculous. I put the bottle in the waste basket.
Even on food waste, it is almost impossible to recycle it all. See olive oil above. We have oatmeal most mornings. We do our best to put all the oatmeal into the bowls. We can lick the serving spoon to get some of what's left, but how do you get off all that is still stuck to the pan? We have to get the residue off before putting the pan in the dishwasher, or it will eventually clog the dishwasher screen. So, we have to use more water than we cooked the oats in to soak the residue and then run that water through the sink disposer. Oops! More energy just to clean up.
Now if we can think of some way to buy newspapers without more advertising inserts than newsprint we actually read. Inserts and the sports pages go right to the recycle pile (unless the comics or weather are in the sports section).
