Un-capping bottles costs time and money for recycling center Published Sept. 17, 2007 By Mike Wallace Skywrighter Staff WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- The next time you finish drinking that soda or water, go ahead and recycle the plastic bottle, but leave the cap off. If you twist the cap back on the bottle, you're apart of the 80 percent of those who do, but you're causing problems for the base. Each year, approximately two million plastic drink containers find their way to the recycling center, located in Area A. Each one gets flattened in a hydraulic baling machine, and then the bales are loaded onto trailers and sold. The price is based upon weight, and that's where those caps come into play. When a container has its cap screwed back on, the baler cannot completely crush it. Recycling center director Bill Meinerding said, "The more condensed the bale is, the more weight can be 'put' in a bale," and thus the more money per bale comes back to the base. A truckload is limited to about 22 bales because of volume, and the more weight, the more money. Currently, recycling center employees must unscrew the cap off of each container that comes through the center. Not only is this a tedious and very time-consuming job, it's unnecessary. Meinerding said the plastic that soda and water bottles are made of is worth about 25 to 30 cents per pound. The plastic that the container lid is made of is worth so little that recycling it is not economically viable. He advises people to simply throw away the lids. Another problem with recapping a drink container is the liquid trapped inside. It would be better not only for the health of the recycling center workers, but also the metal and concrete surfaces of the center, if the liquid left in a container was minimal. If possible, rinse the bottle before recycling. Eventually, according to Meinerding, the center will get a machine that can shred the plastic containers. Until then, he asks that base people recycle their bottles without the caps. That way, the recycling center workers can then be put on other jobs, which helps the base achieve its average $400,000-plus profit on recyclables each year. Some of these other jobs include managing the one-and-a-half tons of shredded junk mail every week, grinding up pill bottles generated by the 300-bed hospital and numerous outpatients, oil recycling, and several other tasks. The recycling center has some free "products" available to base people. Among these are nitrogen-rich worm castings, wooden pallets and ground glass. For more information about the recycling center, call 257-4769.