Should we recycle bottles and jars with their caps or lids on or off?

I would say off, since they’re of different materials and would have to be separated at some point.

Recycle them separately. The lids are recycled with the metal cans and such.

It is an issue. The recycling instructions given by my town specifically state to take the tops off and to only recycle metal, glass and plastics #1 and #2.

Here there is a little bin attached to the bottle recycling “cage” specifically for bottle caps and lids, to separate them from the bottles.

It is not wise to leave the lids on. You can recycle them separately if your recycling allows or throw them in the garbage.

I usually rinse food bottles and jars out before throwing them in the recycling.

Separately :)

Where I live they will not accept bottles with the lids on. I am not sure if this is because they pay you by weight and don’t want anyone to cheat the system by filling the bottles up and making them much heavier or due to dissimilar materials or both. I’d be interested to know.

I recycle with the lids off. my Grandmother crafts with the lids, so they all go to her. :)

You should recycle the lids separately, but if you miss magnets extract metal from the glass after it’s crushed.

They make all sorts of cool things out of recycled glass, including roadbed under road paving. So no worries about it floating if you accidentally leave the lid on.

Thanks. I think I will make it a point to remember to leave the caps off.

Go to your local government’s website and see what they say. I might answer based on what my local government says – say, to leave them on – but that doesn’t prevent the practice in your region’s recycling plants from being to remove the lids and throw them out (in which case you should throw them out yourself or to find some other use for them).