As a recycler, I’ve often wondered if it’s actually worth it to rinse my recyclables before I toss them in the bin. I mean, the recycling facilities MUST wash what comes in, right? So why waste the water? However, my predicament always gets tinged with guilt for throwing dirty recyclables in, thinking how gross is must be for recycling plant workers to sort through my tomato paste cans, caked with week-old mold. Inevitably, I always rinse them.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who has worried about this. On one of their web-based quizzes, online magazine Blue Egg addresses this exact topic. Presented with the questions, “Should you rinse your recyclables or save the water?” the options are to:

A—Rinse it out and recycle it
B—Conserve the water and toss the container in the trash
C—Just put the dirty recyclable in the bin. They’ll wash it at the recycling plant anyway, so why wash it twice?

As mush as my time-saving, water-conserving self would love for C to be correct, Blue Egg goes on to give a lengthy explanation for why A is your best choice. Although all plants are different in what they ask from recyclers, most will deem a batch of recyclables contaminated if something like tomato paste gets into it. That batch, in turn, goes straight to the landfill.

Although it does use water, in the end it actually saves water and energy for you to rinse those recyclables yourself.