Cousin nobody washes out thier cans. who does that? And of course i recycle. I'm a friend of the earth,
I had to do this when I lived in Anaheim. If you don't, gnats will start to live in the bag of cans you have. You either have to rinse out the cans, or keep them outside.
Quite a few "places" insist that you clean out your recyclables, before you put them into the bins. They will fine you if you do not.
FFS, sometimes I throw things away, simply BECAUSE I do not want to clean them!!
Me too depends on what it will take to get it clean and how gross it is some stuff is just not worth it. Say if you have to spend 10 minutes cleaning it using five gallons hot water and soap the value saved is probably nothing. I rinse but not much else
I generally do less cleaning on recyclables when the temperature is expected to be below freezing for four or five months. In the very short summer, I am anal about not attracting pests, but that is my motivation in cleaning out the recyclables before I dump them into the bin, not the convenience of the company that I PAY fifty something dollars per month to recycle my garbage (while that company makes quite a bit of profit from recycling all of our garbage).
Mainly, I do not want my garbage to attract raccoons, opossums, rats, mice, ants, etc.