How Clean Are Your Recyclables? »
According to the recycling guidelines published by the City of Charlotte, if you choose to recycle, if you recycle glass, you should rinse it out. If you recycle plastic spiral cans, you should rinse or wipe out remaining food. Strangely, there is no mention of cleaning plastic. I'm also no sure what a plastic spiral can is, but this page leads me to believe it's like one of those cans you get pre-made biscuits and cinnamon rolls and things in. I don't know, because we don't get many of those.
Anyway, what I'm wondering is this: You don't want to have a bunch of food in the recycle bin because it's just nasty - keeping the food there is just asking for bugs in the best case and rodents in the worst case, so I'm thinking that it's a good idea to clean them out. But with all the hubbub about the lack of rain, and how lakes are closing their access ramp and even wells are running dry, is it an issue that we are effectively wasting water to clean items to be recycled?
