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costabius t1_ixg297i wrote

Reply to comment by biffingtonjones in What is the truth about recycling in Maine? by jevamoka

That's not how it works.

Glass and metal, it doesn't matter how dirty it is, it gets ground to pieces and melted.

Plastic recycling is complicated, but how dirty the plastic is has no bearing on whether it will be recycled or not.

The only item it does matter for is paper. One greasy pizza box will ruin a ton of cardboard and make it useless. Oil and grease is very hard to separate from paper pulp.

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nhrunner87 t1_ixh6mdb wrote

It really bothers me when I see pizza places put “recycle me!” on their boxes because in most cases the grease makes it ineligible for recycling. But they don’t clarify that.

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sassafrasfruit t1_ixhhw0h wrote

You can compost that greasey cardboard

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nhrunner87 t1_ixhkp3k wrote

Yeah good point. Could probably just cut out the section with the grease on it, compost it, and recycle the rest.

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