How to Prepare Your Bottles and Cans for an Adelaide Recycling Depot

These bottles will be dirty before they even reach the recycling depot, and when you get there, you’ll discover that they’re unfit for recycling. So make all your bottles and cans count by properly preparing them before dropping them off at the recycling depot.

Prepare your bottles and cans for recycling by:

Grouping them separately

Don’t recycle all your bottles and cans in the same sack or basket; instead, put them in different sacks. Cans and bottles go through different recycling processes and will still get sorted at the recycling depot, so you should separate them before dropping them off.

Mixing bottles and cans will confuse you as you won’t know how many bottles and cans you’ve recycled. You could also end up recycling other things that aren’t bottles and cans. 

If you plan to get money in exchange for your bottles, you may encounter problems at the recycling depot because most of your items will be rejected. 

Ensure they’re clean

After using bottled and canned goods, you should clean them if you plan to recycle them. Dirty bottles and cans can’t be recycled because they’re already contaminated and can’t be turned into newer items.

Think of it like this, if you want to pass down a piece of clothing to someone, would you give it out while it’s dirty, or you’d ensure it’s clean? Have separate baskets for your dirty and clean bottles so you don’t mix them. 

Clean the bottles with water and soap, and ensure you dry them off once you’re done. Only clean bottles are accepted, while dirty ones are rejected. It would be painful if you get to a recycling depot and are told your items are unacceptable.

Mint condition 

It’s important your bottles and cans are still in a pristine state. Your cans and bottles shouldn’t be crushed; rather, you should leave them how you bought them. You can avoid crushing your bottles and cans by having enough sacks to put them in. 

Thorntons Recycling has proper recycling baskets, baskets and sacks that would accommodate all the bottles and cans you have without crushing them. You should also remove the caps off your bottles - the caps hinder the recycling process, so they’re unnecessary and unwanted. 

You should also remove the wraps off the bottles and cans. When you’re transporting your recyclables, put them in the passenger or backseat, where they’ll have enough space. Before getting to the depot, count all the bottles and cans you’ve recycled so that you can tell the depot attendant.