Stop Crushing Aluminum Cans When Recycling; Here’s Why

You need to stop crushing aluminum cans before hauling them in to be recycled according to industry experts.

The reason behind this request makes all the more sense once you understand the recycling process.

Stomping Cans To Make More Room

Some people develop their core childhood memories around family vacations or a memorable holidays. One of mine happens to be based on piles and piles of aluminum cans.

As a child, my family ran our town's summer baseball program. Not only did that mean being responsible for what's on the field, but also everything involved with operating the concession stand at each of the parks.

Once the games were over for the day, the garbage cans needed to be emptied around the concession stand where we would amass overflowing bags of aluminum soda cans. We'd haul the bags home were we would spend hours smashing the cans so they could be more easily transported to a recycling center.

A row of cans, a tower stacked five high, one for each foot. We continued to find innovative ways to entertain ourselves while smashing the aluminum.

Now, I am learning we were doing it all wrong.

Why You Shouldn't Crush Aluminum Cans

You'd need inside information about how your local city or recycling center sorts items in order to determine whether you should crush your aluminum cans or not. Assuming that you probably don't know that, it's probably best you skip smashing all of those beer cans from the weekend.

Reader's Digest covered the topic and found that some facilities use a "single-stream system" for sorting their recyclables. Crushing aluminum cans can actually throw off the entire system. That smashed can is less likely to be detected as aluminum.

"That's because it's harder for the electrical current which helps separate out aluminum cans at municipal recycling facilities to identify them," the website reported.

Should You Flatten Plastic Bottles?

Another common myth when it comes to recycling is flattening plastic bottles and removing their caps. This practice was actually recommended for a period, but it is now outdated.

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RealSimple.com says there have been vast improvements in technology at recycling centers that now allow them to better sort and process plastic bottles. Not only that, but experts now say that flattened plastic bottles can be more easily confused for being a paper product.

No smashing, crushing or flattening is required for your aluminum and plastic making recycling a whole lot easier.

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