I recently had an argument (well heated discussion) with somebody about whether it is OK to leave staples in paper before putting it into the recycling bin. I thought it was fine; she thought it was bad etiquette and just gave the good folks at the recycling plant more work to do.
Well, after some research, I have discovered the truth.
It is, in fact, fine to leave staples in. During the recycling process, paper is reduced to a mushy pulp and a strong magnet is used to pluck out staples and other bits of metal.
So there is no need to sit ripping all the corners off millions of bits of paper.
Now, I will go and glow in my self righteousness... :-)
Interesting. I hadn't realised that this was not a problem, having carefully removed all staples before offering paper for recycling. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDeleteThat's good to know ta. It is good that we have these advances in recycling. It can't have been that long ago when a yoghurt pot in the plastic would ruin a whole batch.
ReplyDeleteI know, I have also wasted many hours of my life removing staples from bits of paper - I could have solved world peace in all that time!:-)
ReplyDeleteYeah the advanced in recycling are rapid - but unfortunately not rapid enough. Where I live (Hull) they have just achieved their target of 40% recycling - which is good, but that means 60% is not recycled, which is bad :-(
I meant advances, not advanced!
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