Recycling Experts Want You To Stop Crushing Aluminum Cans
I grew up thinking that crushing a soda can before tossing it in the bin was practically a civic duty. There was something so satisfying about stomping on an empty can until it was a flat little puck. I truly believed I was saving space in the recycling truck and making the whole process easier for everyone involved. But it turns out that this helpful habit might actually be causing more headaches than help at the recycling center.
The Real Problem
Most of us crush our cans because we want to fit more into our recycling bins. It feels like the logical thing to do because air takes up valuable space. And we assume that the recycling facility wants the material as compact as possible. However this logic comes from an older time when people sorted their recycling by hand. In our modern world of single stream recycling where everything goes in one bin, the rules have actually changed.
How The Sorting Machines Work
Modern recycling facilities rely on high tech sorting machines to separate paper from plastic and glass from metal. These machines are incredibly smart but they rely heavily on the shape of an object to identify what it is. They generally operate on a system that separates flat items from three dimensional items. This is where our crushed cans run into trouble. When you flatten a can, you are essentially making it look more like paper or cardboard.
The Case Of Mistaken Identity
When a crushed aluminum can moves down the conveyor belt it looks flat and light. To the optical sorters and weight sensors this profile looks exactly like paper or cardboard. The machine often makes a mistake and sorts the valuable aluminum into the paper pile. This is a double loss because the aluminum gets wasted and the bale of paper becomes contaminated. It ends up making the entire batch of recycled paper less valuable and harder to process.
Keeping Things As They Are
The easiest way to help the machines is to keep your cans in their original shape. When a can is round and cylindrical the sorting equipment can easily recognize it as a container. It gets knocked into the correct bin and eventually melts down to become a new can. It feels strange to throw a hollow object into the bin that takes up so much space, but that volume is exactly what the robots need to see.
The Exception To The Rule
I should mention that this advice applies specifically to single stream recycling where everything is mixed together. If you live in an area where you have to separate your glass and aluminum and paper into different bins yourself, then crushing is totally fine. Since you are doing the sorting before the recycling is collected, the machine does not have to guess. The same goes for if you collect cans to take to a scrap yard for cash because they only care about the weight.
A Simple Change For A Better System
If you toss your recycling into one big mixed bin, just give your cans a quick rinse and throw them in whole. It might feel lazy or messy at first to leave them uncrushed but it is actually the most helpful thing you can do. You are ensuring that the metal actually gets recycled instead of accidentally ruining a batch of paper. It is a small adjustment that makes the whole system work a little smoother.
Related Articles
-Why You Should Always Keep the Cap On When Recycling Plastic Bottles
-These 8 Items Are Attracting Rodents To Your House
-Experts Say You Should Never Recycle These 7 Things
It is funny how household habits get passed down until we forget why we started doing them in the first place. Learning that I should stop crushing cans was a surprise to me, but it makes sense when you look at how technology has changed. It is okay to update our routines when we learn a better way. I am going to retire my can crushing boots and just let the machines do their job for me.
Bliss Donahue-Power
