Whether you’ve always been diligent about separating your recycling or horrifying photos of the effects global warming is having on our planet have recently spurred you to start carrying your own stainless-steel straw, there’s still a lot more all of us can do to recycle more efficiently. But there’s also a lot that can feel confusing about what can – and can’t – be recycled, and getting it wrong can result in contaminating a whole batch and sending it to a landfill. So where to begin? Start simply, says Brent Bell, VP of Recycling for Waste Management. “The recycling rate for soda and water bottles is only 30 percent today, so let’s increase the rate of how we’re recycling the right items,” he says. “If you simplified it and did [just] paper, cardboard, bottles, and cans, but increased the recycling rate for those materials, that would be a great start.” Ready to go a step further and really green your routine? We spoke to Bell, as well as Brett Stevens, Terracycle‘s Global VP, Material Sales & Procurement, and the press office for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to get the honest answers to some of the most asked-questions about recycling. (We asked for general guidelines that apply to much of the United States, but it’s important to check with your local municipality for any specific guidelines or restrictions; check recycleoftenandrecycleright.com or earth911.comto get started.)

Can you recycle boxes with tape or labels on them?

Short answer: It’s not mandatory to remove the tape, but if you can, you should. Many of us throw Amazon boxes in the recycling without a second thought – but is the packing tape creating a problem when it gets to a recycling plant? “One great way to help ensure materials are recycled is to remove any potentially non-recyclable materials, like plastic tape and labels from boxes,” says the EPA. “Many types of boxes are recyclable, but if it’s difficult to separate the different material types, the chances that it will be recycled are greatly reduced.” Bell advises breaking boxes down just to save space in bins and encourage more cardboard recycling, and while he advises removing tape, he says it generally can still be processed: “We’d much rather get tape on a cardboard box than we would a slice of pizza.”

Can you recycle plastic food clamshells, like the ones berries and spinach come in?

Short answer: Usually not, but check your local specifications and remove labels and stickers. “Food clamshells come in a variety of different material formats,” such as Styrofoam, “biodegradable” PLA plastic and more, says Terracycle’s Stevens. “The clear PET version can be put into your curbside bin only if it doesn’t have stickers and labels on it. The others cannot go into curbside recycling bins.” Adds Bell, “Most programs don’t allow for food containers [like takeout dishes or tomato packaging] because those are both overall what we would classify as ‘hard to recycle’ material … The food becomes problematic with just the residue left over that could cause contamination with good recycling materials that are in that same bin.” Short answer: Yes, recycle away! Even though the bottle and its cap are made out of two different kinds of plastic, “It is perfectly fine to leave plastic caps on your plastic bottles, as modern sorting facilities have the equipment needed to sort this material out of the stream and into its own supply chain,” advises Stevens. The EPA recommends separating the bottle from the cap to expedite the process, as long as you know your local recycling agency can process the loose caps safely.