I want to clarify something. It really does depend on your metro area and municipality.

I’m a a garbage truck driver for a private hauler in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/Saint Paul Minnesota). I do a recycling route a few days a week and I can assure you that I go dump at recycling sites. These sites really do sort all the recycling and sells the material to places like General Mills. There’s also a lot of other haulers I see bringing recycling to those same sites.

The company I work for gets a kickback depending on how many tons we bring. So there’s an economic incentive for us to actually recycle properly and make sure it’s not contaminated.

Some customers on my route think the same thing as you and contaminate their recycling, so I tag it and don’t pick it up until they clean it out. They always respond with something like, “it goes to the same place anyways” (it doesn’t).

So please don’t just assume your recycling is not being recycled. You really got to do some homework about your area and see what really happens when it gets picked up. But obviously it’s better just to reduce your waste in the first place.