If you don’t clean your recycling, it can harm more than it helps. And that icon with the arrows is virtually meaningless

"It’s a familiar scene: you stand at the bin, trash in hand, and wonder: “Can I recycle this?”

We tend to throw it in the recycling bin anyway, in the hope that some unknown person, somewhere else, will sort it out. Recyclers call this aspirational recycling, or wish-cycling.

While recycling continues to be an essential tool for dealing with the flood of plastic inundating the planet, it’s time for a reality check...

If you don’t clean your recycling, it can harm more than it helps. And that icon with the arrows is virtually meaningless

"It’s a familiar scene: you stand at the bin, trash in hand, and wonder: “Can I recycle this?”

We tend to throw it in the recycling bin anyway, in the hope that some unknown person, somewhere else, will sort it out. Recyclers call this aspirational recycling, or wish-cycling.

While recycling continues to be an essential tool for dealing with the flood of plastic inundating the planet, it’s time for a reality check...