What to do when you forget whether something can be recycled. - By Nina Shen Rastogi - Slate Magazine

What to do when you forget whether something can be recycled. - By Nina Shen Rastogi - Slate Magazine:

I wonder about this one when I'm sorting kitchen waste: If you don't know whether something is recyclable, what's the best approach? Is it better to put the inscrutable item in the blue recycling bin, or should you just throw it in the trash?

Although it may seem sacrilegious—since being an ardent recycler is the sine qua non of old-school environmentalism—when in doubt, you should throw it out.

...The next time you find yourself hovering indecisively over a set of trash bins, here are some rules of thumb. Plastics marked No. 1 or No. 2 are virtually guaranteed to be accepted, so go ahead and toss them in with your recycling. Newspaper, corrugated cardboard, magazines, and office paper are almost always good to go as well. If your mystery object doesn't fall into one of those categories, trash it.