You have to remove the plastic label if you want to recycle this plastic bottle.

Not this one, every one. The only difference is that they bother to put this info on the label.

Nearly all containers (glass or plastic) need to have their label removed to recycle properly. And you must rinse them out, too.

Some can be recycled with the label on, but only if the plastic used is the type that can be recycled. Confusing and frustrating, yes.

The crappy thing is that some labels really don't come off easily because they've been glued in place... those are awful to recycle because it requires quite a bit of extra effort, soaking, adhesive remover, etc... 😂

You need to separate most materials in order to recycle them. The plastic of a lid is different from that of a bottle which are both different from a wrapping. Separating materials is key to successful recycling. A lot of times stuff can't get recyled because people don't separate it before throwing it away.

Or you could just use, you know, reusable materials.

You mean you have to remove the plastic label before you throw the bottle into a recycling bin which gets dumped into a landfill never to be seen again.

Okay. So they do this in Japan. The plastic used in the wrapper is different than the plastic in the bottle. They require different processes to recycle. It’s also far more efficient for regular people to just rip it off and throw one in one bin and the other in another bin in their own homes than it is for a sorting facility to go through mountains of this stuff trying to get it right every single time. Frankly I wish more places did it this way.

I hope this explanation will make things even less infuriating.

It all gets dumped in the ocean

Plastic is better off just going in the trash. The ability to recycle it is largely a lie. Especially plastic that touched food as it needs to be clean to recycle.

Which once removed and put into the recycling, the plastic bottle will then go live a long life in the landfill.

Milk should come in bags, there I said it

They should teach AI how to sort garbage and do it for us instead of making it create videos of pirate ships in a cup of coffee

Imagine doing something slightly inconvenient, let alone something that can take a whole second.

2 different kinds of plastic.

Not all plastic is recyclable. John Oliver (nsfw) has a good bit on it here:

https://youtu.be/Fiu9GSOmt8E

Do people not enjoy ripping the paper off of plastic water bottles? This looks like the same kind of fun to me.

At least yours has a perforated line to try and tear before giving up and just getting a knife. My family keeps buying the bottles with no perforation and isn't a smooth bottle. Tedious getting them ready for recycling.

I think you are on to something, mr Whistleblower. Keep digging and call Greta when you have drawn conclusions! In the meantime, move stealthily, they may be watching! :-)

Oh no ! Anyway .

Standard practice in Germany but I think there's no recycling in the USA (assuming you're there) so quite pointless in this case

I could be wrong, but I would assume they're part of a bottle exchange; where they wash the bottles and reuse them

Quicker to just throw it in the fire place... ya know?

Just watched https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/?

very relevant article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/recycling-plastics-producers-report