Should I Recycle my Bottle Caps and Lids?

  When filling your recycling bin, you may find yourself wondering “What do I do with the caps and the lids?” The answer is: Put a lid on it! All plastic and metal caps and lids should be reattached to empty containers before you recycle them. That includes soda and water bottles, milk jugs, juice containers, yogurt tubs and mason jars – pretty much anything that has a cap or lid that can be securely reattached. This is true even if the lid and container are different types of material (i.e., a metal lid on a glass jar).

  Loose lids and caps should go in the trash. When not attached to a container, they are too small to be captured by the recycling machinery and will fall through the cracks during the sorting process. Bottle caps from glass bottles (for beer or soda), for example, should go in the trash because they cannot be reattached securely.

  Tips for metal can lids: You can either leave a bit of the lid attached and bend it into the can, or plop them down in the can’s bottom and give the can a little pinch. (Source: recyclesmartma.org/)

  Saugus Action Volunteers for the Environment (SAVE) is a nonprofit organization that organized and incorporated in 1973 “to promote a better quality of life in Saugus through environmental concern and action.” Since that time, we’ve had an eventful history and achieved many fine results. Learn more about us at www.saugus.org/SAVE/

  SAVE will have a regular column every few weeks; we will do our best to answer questions we are often asked. If you have a question for us to answer, please send your question to Co-Presidents Ann Devlin (at adevlin@aisle10.net) or Stephanie Shalkoski (at stephaniems@gmail.com).