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Adding up the numbers when you recycle plastic
products and containers
by
Plastic is a versatile and
inexpensive material with thousands of uses, but it is also a significant
source of pollution.
Some worrisome emerging
environmental issues involve plastics, including gigantic oceanic gargabe
patches and the microbeads problem.
Recycling can alleviate some
of the problems, but the confusion over what we can and cannot recycle
continues to confound consumers.
Plastics are
particularly troublesome, as different types require different processing
to be reformulated and re-used as raw material.
To effectively recycle
plastic items, you need to know two things: the plastic number of the material,
and which of these types of plastics your municipality's recycling service
accepts.
Many facilities now accept #1
through #7 but check with them first to make sure.
Recycling by the Numbers
The
symbol code we are familiar with — a single digit ranging from 1 to 7
surrounded by a triangle of arrows — was designed by The Society of the
Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988 to allow consumers and recyclers to
differentiate types of plastics while providing a uniform coding system for
manufacturers.
The
numbers, which 39 U.S. states now require to be molded or imprinted on all
eight-ounce to five-gallon containers that can accept the half-inch
minimum-size symbol, identify the type of plastic.
According to the American
Plastics Council, an industry trade group, the symbols also help recyclers do
their jobs more effectively.
PET (Polyethylene terephthalate)
The
easiest and most common plastics to recycle are made of polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) and are assigned the number 1.
Examples include soda and
water bottles, medicine containers, and many other common consumer product
containers.
Once it has been processed by
a recycling facility, PET can become fiberfill for winter coats, sleeping bags,
and life jackets.
It can also be used to make
beanbags, rope, car bumpers, tennis ball felt, combs, sails for boats,
furniture and, of course, other plastic bottles.
However tempting it may
be, PET #1 bottles should not be re-purposed as reusable water bottles.
HDPE (High-density polyethylene plastics)
Number
2 is reserved for high-density polyethylene plastics (HDPE).
These include heavier
containers that hold laundry detergents and bleaches as well as milk,
shampoo, and motor oil.
Plastic labeled with the
number 2 is often recycled into toys, piping, truck bed liners, and rope. Like
plastic designated number 1, it is widely accepted at recycling centers.
V (Vinyl)
Polyvinyl
chloride, commonly used in plastic pipes, shower curtains, medical tubing,
vinyl dashboards, gets number 3.
Once recycled, it can be
ground up and reused to make vinyl flooring, window frames, or piping.
LDPE (Low-density polyethylene)
Low-density
polyethylene (LDPE) is used to make thin, flexible plastics like wrapping
films, grocery bags, sandwich bags, and a variety of soft packaging materials.
PP (Polypropylene)
Some
food containers are made with the stronger polypropylene plastic, as well as a
large proportion of plastic caps.
PS (Polystyrene)
Number
6 goes on polystyrene (commonly called Styrofoam items such as coffee
cups, disposable cutlery, meat trays, packing “peanuts” and insulation.
It can be reprocessed into
many items, including rigid insulation.
However, the foam versions of
plastic #6 (for example, cheap coffee cups) pick up a lot of dirt and other
contaminants during the handling process, and often just ends up being thrown
away at the recycling facility.
Others
Last
are items crafted from various combinations of the aforementioned plastics or
from unique plastic formulations not commonly used.
Usually imprinted with a
number 7 or nothing at all, these plastics are the most difficult to recycle.
If your municipality accepts
#7, good, but otherwise you will have to re-purpose the object or throw it in
the trash. Better yet, do not buy it in the first place.
More ambitious consumers can
feel free to return such items to the product manufacturers to avoid
contributing to the local waste stream, and instead, put the burden on the
makers to recycle or dispose of the items properly.
EarthTalk
is a regular feature of E/The Environmental Magazine. Selected EarthTalk
columns are reprinted here by permission of the editors of E.
Edited
by Frederic Beaudry.
Frederic Beaudry
· Associate
professor of environmental science at Alfred University in New York
· Ph.D.
in wildlife ecology from the University of Maine
Experience
Dr.
Frederic Beaudry is a former writer for ThoughtCo who contributed articles on
pollution, global warming, and climate science for three years. He is an
associate professor of environmental science at Alfred
University in New York. Prior to teaching, he worked as a
wildlife biologist, focusing on the ecology and conservation of birds and
turtles. Beaudry has authored several scientific papers on land use and
conservation and has conducted research examining land use changes and their
effects on bird and amphibian communities.
Education
Beaudry
has a B.S. in biology from Université du Québec à Rimouski and an M.A. in
natural resources from Humboldt State University. He earned a Ph.D. in
wildlife ecology at the University of Maine. Beaudry completed postdoctoral
research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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