Great information

I never knew that about plastic bottles, that crushing them would cause them not to be sorted properly. We have a mixed stream recycling so I am going to make sure that my bottles are intact.

What I do with a lot of my plastic bottles is I cut the bottoms open and cut the tops off to the shoulder, dig a hole in my garden, and stick the bottle into the hole,sticking up about 3 inches. Then I fill 1/2 full with soil, put my plants into the bottle and put in more soil, leaving about a 2" gap to the top for watering. The slick side keeps critters from crawling up my plant stems and destroying the plant. The bottle gives the plant a bit of sturdiness while growing and the roots can grow out of the bottom of the bottle, way down deep into the dirt. The open top traps the water so that the water doesn't go all over the place and water the weeds, too.All I have to recycle is the tops of the bottles and the caps.

Are lids to water bottles able to be recycled?

Plastic bottles are bad for the environment and bad for you too. I wish people would stop using them altogether and then we wouldn't have to think about whether to crush them or not.