For most of my adult life, I have been a "wishful recycler." I threw pretty much everything in the recycle bin, even things I wasn't sure could be recycled, because I was hopeful that the good people who sort it all out would figure it out for me. Turns out, I was WRONG. This is called "contaminating the recycling stream," and it causes your entire "wishful" bin to go straight to the landfill.