Well the national geographic is american, so not necessarily the situation in europe.
Take a visit to your local recycling centre and see what they do. Some wash plastic and collect the waste food for biomass energy. Others don’t.
Well thats a big surprise, it was clear that the mass recyling wasn’t happening at the time, hopefully things have improved certainly in the EU compared to the USA. Weak governments, big oil, always the same.
excellent idea… ours has repeatedly told people not to waste the water by washing things before chucking in the recycling
I’ll try and get a proper look… and come back to report on my findings… 
There’s been quite a bit of public information on recycling in the UK. General consensus here is that a smear or light film is fine, but food in 3D is not when recycling plastic.
We have been explicitly told not to wash our glass or plastic items as this is seen as a waste of resources, water and energy. The recycled items are washed when processed in a much more efficient manner.
It makes sense for Them to have a washing system in place (if that is needed)… rather like the Car Wash… where the used water is recycled… no waste, no pollution…
I really do want to make a visit… I’ll put it on my bucket list
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As far as I’m concerned, if paper (not kitchen roll) , plastic or metal (in any form), it goes unwashed in the recycling. Glass too but separately. Wherever it goes, they can sort it out and if it’s wrong they need to let us know. We haven’t been given access to "food waste " recycling yet, and its not going in my compost , so until they provide bins it goes in the weekly collected rubbish bags.
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Lots of food waste items are really good in compost, we put most things in. Not any meat products or starch based things such as bread though. You just need to have other things to add like grass cuttings and other garden waste. You can also add shredded plain cardboard, but not if it has a coating.
Here, it’s now forbidden to put any compostable waste into your black bin bags. Thing is, there are no facilities to collect food waste, nor can you take it to the déchetterie, which is something they need to sort out. They do take garden waste and are going to put chipping machines at the déchetterie now so that you can make mulch for the garden.
Edit: A couple of weeks ago, we got a message from the Maire admonishing people for putting inappropriate items in both the recycling bins and black bags, so they seem to be taking things seriously here.
Ditto, at least there was definitely a communication to that effect but I can’t find confirmation on the service des déchets pages on the communauté de communes web site.
It would be better if the weigh and save shops took off where you take your own containers.
Ours does for stuff sold en vrac.
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If we rinse out using the dishwater that already cleaned the dishes, that is probably OK. I just like to be clean and tidy, even with rubbish.
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