Should Plastic Bottles be Crushed or Not Before Throwing Them in the Yellow Trash?

Recycling: If the sorting instructions are clear to the vast majority of French people, the instructions for compacting plastic bottles are less known. And yet they too are very clear

Do you think you are knowledgeable about selective sorting and can say without hesitation which bin to put each type of waste in? Congratulations, and you’re not alone: according to the 6th Suez-Odoxa barometer published Friday November 21,9% of French people believe that it is easy to sort waste. That’s the easy level. But do you know whether or not to crush the bottles plastic before throwing them in the yellow trash?

Good news: “Today, there is enough homogeneity at the French level to have a single message”, explains Sylvain Pasquier, operational manager of the extended responsibility center for packaging and paper producers at Ademe (Agence de l’environment and energy management). The national instructions, which can be found in particular on the “what to do with my objects and waste” page from the Agency, is simple. “It is advisable not to crush or flatten the plastic bottle when sorting”, says the expert.

Avoid disturbing machines

However, if you want to save space in your sorting bin, a gesture “is authorized but not requested”, explains Sylvain Pasquier: you can flatten your bottle lengthwise. On the other hand, crushing it in the other direction is “to be avoided”. “If you crush your bottle over its entire height from the neck to make a kind of round pancake, it will no longer be detected in sorting centers and be sorted in refusals, so it will not be recycled”, explains the packaging specialist.

To understand why, you need to look at what happens to your waste once it arrives at the sorting center. “The sorting process is a sequence of machines which aims to separate the flows into different categories, such as the can flow or the bottle flow”, explains Juliette Beaulieu, development manager recycling at Citeo, including the sorting Guide Application gives exactly the same instructions for plastic bottles. These machines will recognize waste and separate it according to its material and shape. They distinguish in particular between so-called flying objects, called flat bodies, and hollow bodies, to which the bottles belong.

However, “when we crush them, the machines have difficulty recognizing them”, says the recycling specialist. This does not mean that these objects will not be recycled at all, but they will be less well recognized. Bottles flattened lengthwise, however, pose no problem, because they “will always have a small volume and shape” which allows them to be correctly identified.

Simple gestures

Although some sorting centers recommend vertical compaction of plastic bottles on their website, the best thing is always to follow the national instructions: leave them intact, or flatten them lengthwise. These contradictory instructions may be due to a lack of updating of web pages or a poor understanding of the rules, according to Sylvain Pasquier.

Other rules, in addition to those on bottle compaction, make it possible to optimize sorting. “You should not remove the cap or the labels and do not wash the bottles”, lists Juliette Beaulieu. And the most important instruction, even if it seems obvious: “You put them in the yellow bin! “In which, as Citeo specifies on its site, the different packaging must neither be nested nor fitted.

These instructions are valid for all plastic bottles (for milk, water, sodas, drinking yogurts…) – in its Sorting Guide, Citeo also reminds you to “split the aluminum lid well” -, but also for those of cosmetic or household products. Simple actions that allow optimal recycling: in 2023, 55.3% of plastic beverage bottles were collected to be recycled in 2023 according to provisional data from Ademe.