Photo courtesy of Jeremy Brooks at Flickr.com.
Bottle caps are surprisingly difficult to recycle. Many curbside recycling programs ask that you remove any lids or caps from bottles. For one thing, this allows the bottles to dry out (reducing transportation costs by reducing weight). Also, open bottles are easier to crush and bale. And some recycling machines are easily jammed by plastic shards and tiny lids.
Most importantly, plastic bottle caps are often made from a different type of plastic from the bottles they’re attached to. Soda bottles are generally made from Type 1 Plastic (Polyethylene Terephthalate) while bottle caps are made from Type 5 Plastic (Polypropylene). These different types of plastic have to be recycled separately. If the bottle and the cap were recycled in the same batch of plastic, the two different plastics would melt unevenly and the whole batch would be ruined.
For this reason, bottle caps are often removed at the recycling facility. People are paid to hand sort the recyclables and remove unwanted trash. Contamination of recycling bins with garbage is a huge problem. Mixing the wrong kinds of plastic with recycling significantly increases the cost of recycling because when workers hand sort the entire bin it slows down the process and increases the cost to such a degree that it’s cheaper for most recycling organizations to simply toss the entire bin as waste material.
But what about metal bottle caps? These are often made of steel, with an attached plastic seal. This mix of plastic and metal isn’t universally recycled, so the first thing you should consider is re-using the bottle caps for homebrewing. This will keep the bottlecaps out of the waste stream for a few more uses (without any energy used to melt and reform the metal) and it can also save you a few bucks (each re-used bottle cap will save 2-3 cents). Just make sure to boil the caps between uses, and don’t re-use lids that are wearing out.
Photo courtesy of jnhkrawczyk at Flickr.com.
Steel bottle caps can also be made into other things. They make interesting artistic crafts, such as bottle cap jewelry, checkers, or paint mixers. There’s even a company that sells fishing lures made from bottle caps.
If your recycling center can process metal bottle caps, all you have to do is put loose caps in the recycling bin. Before you recycle your bottle caps, check with your local recycling program to see if they accept bottle caps. Many programs sort steel bottle caps using magnets. If the recycling center in your town is unable to process the bottle caps, you can also check and see if neighboring towns are equipped rather than throwing them away.
Whether you’re using steel or plastic bottle caps,
…the best way to reduce all kinds of container and cap recycling is to buy in large rather than single-serving containers. Does the event you’re holding really require dozens and dozens of 8- to 16-ounce soda and water bottles, many of which will get left behind only partly consumed anyway? Why not buy large soda bottles, provide pitchers of (tap) water and let people pour into re-usable cups?
Do you recycle at your house?
If so, you might be interested in these home recycling products like a cool aluminum can crusher that comes with a collection bin, a three bin system for sorting your recyclables, or a multi-can crusher that can crush 10 cans at once.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for including my Bottle Cap Necklace photo in your article! Much appreciated!
– Jill
Thanks for a fabulous article. Didn’t know how difficult it was to recycle bottle caps. At least now I won’t make the same mistake of leaving them on.
Jill are those bottle cap necklaces your creation? They’re wonderful.
Since the bottle caps (metal or plastic) have no immediate return valve to the consumer I hope they do not find their way on the ground and in the runoffs or street drains wher ethey might end up in our oceans, rivers, or lakes. If there was an immediate value to the consumer maybe more caps would end up in the recycling bins or brought in to the recycling centers.
Hope bottle caps don’t just end up like many cigarette butts.
the bottle cap is two pieces–what about the plastic ring left on the bottle?
The ReCap Company would take your plastic bottle caps. We have been is business for over a year. We repurpose the caps into useful outdoor products. We will assist with shipping of caps and offer incentives for donations. We have collected nearly 550,000 caps! Collections and donations have picked up drastically in the past few months! We have collections bins in several states and are on our way to make a greener and cleaner planet! Please check us out and contact us with any questions you may have.
Thanx for the insight about recycling. Am hoping that in attempting to recycle matallic bottletops i will do some good for my community.
You mention reusing bottlecaps for homebrewing. However, this is only possible with twist-off caps. My boyfriend is a home brewer and he is positive that bottlecaps are not reusable, because the sides crimp down, they get bent during opening, and just don’t fit back onto a bottle in the same way. Do you know where you got the information that this is possible? I looked on the link you provided but there was no information that I could find about reusing or recycling used bottlecaps. If there’s a method for doing this I would love to know about it! Thank you!
Plastic caps and lids can now be recycled. Visit http://www.capsncups.com for more information.
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