vegimite said ""If you put them in the blue bin, make sure they are washed an labels are off. "
Kind of defeats some of the objectives of recycling. To have to use water, probably heated, together with detergent, when we are trying to save energy and our precious water resource.
I'm sure that at the glass recycling business they are all put in a grinder and/or kiln which would burn off or remove any adherent paper.
Our local recycling depot gets us to put broken glass in the landfill rather than in recycling. I'm sure the dumpster collection folks smash most of the jars on the 2 hour drive to their depot, but no our broken glass has to be buried!
Bad enough that I have to make a 35 mile round trip to even dispose of my recyclables. "
Unfortunately taking off labels and ensuring no food residue is in there needs to be done in order to get recycled properly. If not the jar is considered "contaminated".
Also broken glass, if it is a drinking glass that is because that glass can't/shouldn't be put in the blue bin, it needs a different level of heat to be broken down and is made of a completely different kind of sand.
The best thing to do with any recyclables is to
1) Reduce
2) Reuse
3) Recycle
In that order, most of what goes in teh blue bin doesn't get recycled anyway partly because people don't use the blue bin properly and partly because it is expensive and most cities don't have the proper facilities to do it. So the best thing is to either not buy at all or reuse it yourself. (I have even contacted companies to see if they will send a shipping label and take back their jars, surprisingly many will!)