A recent newspaper article announced that Montgomery, Princeton's neighbor to the north, accepts plastics #1-5 and 7 curbside and also pizza boxes. Somerset County runs the recycling program for Montgomery and other municipalities and, unlike Mercer County, runs its own separation plant (a Materials Recovery Facility, or MRF). They ask that homeowners take the plastic lids off of containers, but it's okay to put the lids in the bin.
Princeton contracts with Mercer County for curbside recycling service, which by contrast requests that residents recycle only plastics 1 and 2, and throw plastic lids and pizza boxes in the trash (apparently because the tops get caught in machinery and the grease on the boxes is thought of as a contaminant in paper recycling). This limitation to plastics 1 and 2 may have to do with their contract with Central Jersey Waste and Recycling, which hauls the curbside recyclables to a MRF. If you throw plastics 3-7 in the curbside bucket, it will probably get recycled, but Mercer County is only paying to have plastics 1 and 2 picked up. There's also a question as to whether plastics 3-7 are recycled in an environmentally responsible manner.
Hopefully, all this confusion will end when it comes time for Mercer County to sign a new contract with its hauler, which, given the area trend towards expanding recycling of plastics, could well include plastics 1-7.
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