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BANG FOR THE BITE
Recycling's one of the eco-friendliest things you can do with already-purchased containers, and it's easy once you learn the ropes.
COCKTAIL FACT
Yet another da Vinci invention: Leo assigned assistants to paint areas on works he'd already sketched and numbered.
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home › tip library › Recycling Plastic
Is recycling plastics properly as hard as staying inside the lines?
The Bite
Nope - even art-school dropouts can do it, with the help of our how-to - it'll make recycling plastic easy as 1-2-3...4-5-6-7.The Benefits
- Picturing an eco-friendlier planet. Currently, we only recycle about 5% of the plastic we produce - and what we don't recycle sometimes gets mistaken for food by wildlife.
- Saving the oil for oil paints. Most plastics are made from petroleum - a finite resource - so try to recycle everything you can.
- Instructions to count on. Recycling plastic is simple once you know the basics.
Personally Speaking
Hilary's backyard compost pile is a formidable heap of bioplastic takeout boxes that looks sorta like a melting Leaning Tower of Pisa.Wanna Try?
Recycling numbers usually appear on the bottom of containers. Check with your facility to find out which plastics it accepts, and write the numbers on top of your recycle bin for easy reference.- Usually recyclable:
- 1. PET - 2-liter and mouthwash bottles, boil-in-bag pouches.
- 2. HDPE - milk jugs, trash bags, detergent bottles, some yogurt cups.
- Sometimes recyclable:
- 4. LDPE - grocery bags, produce bags, food wrap.
- 5. PP - diapers, straws, yogurt containers.
- 6. PS - CD cases, egg cartons, Styrofoam.
- Not so much...
- 3. PVC - cooking-oil bottles, meat packaging, office binders.
- 7. Other - other types of plastic, plus things made from more than one type of plastic (see below).
- Bioplastics (7, and marked as either compostable or biodegradable):
- 7. Compostable Plastic - is nontoxic and breaks down as fast as paper in compost.
- 7. Biodegradable Plastic - may contain toxins, so you have to send it to a special composting facility (enter compost and your zip at Earth911, see below).
- Container Caps - typically different plastics than the container; take 'em off, check the # inside, and either recycle or throw them away.
- Grocery Bags - reuse them first! You usually can't recycle them curbside, but some supermarkets have bins in-store.
- Earth911 - find out if you can recycle specific items in your area.
Jul 07,2008
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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
Obesity Kills
Want one more big, fat reason to properly recycle your plastics?
Making sure it doesn't get out to sea and become part of the always-hungry Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
"Patches," as I and no one else like to call it, is the biggest garbage mound in the world at two times the size of TX, and lives somewhere between SF and Honolulu. Click here to see how it got to be so big.
About 80% of the (mostly plastic) litter is coming from land and a lot of it ends up in the stomachs of animals, including but not limited to extremely cute albatross chicks and baby turtles, who commonly mistake it for food. Yum!
-Toshio...off to tighten my plastic waste-line...
Biter Comments...
Okay, I don't like to lecture, but plastic recycling is not actually 'recycling'. The loop is not closed on that material. 'Plastic recycling' as the plastics industry has greenwashed it is actually a matter of 'plastics collecting' at the curbside, and at drop-off recycling centers. Read that sentence again, it's very important.
So what's the problem?
Despite PET beverage bottles having a cash redemption value, and the very robust recovery rate for that particular resin, there is LITTLE TO NO post-consumer PET in the PET bottle you're chugging your beverage from.
Bottles are still being made from virgin resin. There's a miniscule amount of post-consumer resin in there because the Grassroots Recycling Network, among other activist groups, shamed beverage companies like Coca Cola and PepsiCo, but it is a joke.
That PET which is collected curbside or at recycling drop-offs is shipped to Asia (think about the carbon footprint, guys) to be Someone Else's Problem, where it is reprocessed into NON-recyclable items like canvas, carpeting, plastic lumber that performs poorly against the elements, etc.
That's just a description of what happens with PET. It's a process which culminates in delaying the PET from its ultimate resting place, the landfill, by about a generation.
I love reading IdealBite because you guys always have good info, but I wish you had researched plastic a little more before promulgating the myth that 1-7 is recyclable. It really is not.
It's not a recyclable material in the classic way that glass, metals, and paper fibers are.
And we are consuming it at a lightning speed clip which completely outpaces attempts to collect it. The plastics industry does what it can to gloss over and greenwash this very simple fact.
The greater problem is one of consumption itself. Don't buy in plastic if you can possibly avoid it. At all.
Dangit, my comment was supposed to go on the piece about looking for the number on plastic containers...
Can someone fix where I placed it, pretty please? I intended to post it here:
http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/today
Under Plastics Recycling, July 7 2008
I'm a little passionate about this topic and got carried away, seeing I was replying to the wrong topic after posting.
When I went to the mall recently to purchase moisturizer, I was elated to found out that Aveda recycles those hard container caps! Since I avoid the mall as much as possible, I am saving them for my next trip so I can drop them off to be recycled.
I tend to agree with Obesity on this tip. This particular Ideal Bite on recycling could have been better. The topic of recycling plastics is confusing! I see too often people tossing items which the local recycler does not accept. The City of Denver is only now considering recycling plastics #4-#7. My local recycler will only accept plastics #1 and #2 (the most recyclable of all plastics) if the items are BOTTLES where the bottom is larger than the mouth of the bottle.
As an additional tip,prescription containers are not recyclable, but nursing homes and homeless shelters may take them. Homeless shelters sometimes use them for shampoo and other necessities for their residents.
Kris- Aveda only collects them. They don't claim to recycle them. They can't recycle something that is not recyclable. It looks like a sham to boost a green image and create awareness about their products. You turn in 25 caps and get a free sample.
I'll admit I become a victim of greenwashing more often than I'd like, but I think there is some truth to the Aveda piece. Their webpage on it - http://aveda.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp - specifically says recycling. I believe the first piece I read on it said they'd recycle the ones they can to create bottles for a new line of products. They're probably the same caps that a regular recycling center could recycle, but the one near where I live takes very little plastic as there is no market for it (#1 & #2 with a neck, that's it), so if they have the market, then it at least has the chance to end up somewhere useful as opposed to my recycler that will throw it.
i'm glad sara brought this up, because i am curious about this whole plastic recycling thing.
i wasn't aware that plastic was so minimally recycled, but i had heard that all the 'recycling' was done in third world countries with no environmental rules, because anything you do with plastic basically requires melting it down, which will obviously be tremendously gross for the environment.
so then, what?
don't recycle it, just throw it away?
best advice ever: don't buy it.
it's not as hard as it sounds, it just requires a little bit of planning ahead and careful thought. instead of buying a plastic bottle of water, buy a glass bottle of perrier or something, or carry your own bottle with you to refill. use a travel coffee cup for your iced drinks from cafes, too. carry one of those teensy fold-up shopping bags in your car or purse, so you never have to take a shopping bag. reuse produce bags, or use those net ones.
i've really enjoyed the life change and urge anyone to try it. whether plastic is recyclable or not is beside the point. it's made of things that are bad, harmful, unnatural, so just buy as little of it as possible, for the health of you and the earth.
okay, rant done.
It is green-washing, yes.
Aveda was also found to have synthetic aromachemicals in a number of its all-natural perfumes in the last year. Whoops. There's a lot of hype at stake here. The plastics industry has a dedicated a lot of time and energy to convincing us that reclaimed plastic is a valuable resource, but when's the last time you saw someone harvesting the plastic patch in the Pacific for source material?
Anyway, caps...
The state of California (some others, too) will pay scrap value for plastics, not just cash redemption. Which means that if you have a quantity of odd plastics that are not bottle-shaped, you can pawn them off on a recycler who will accept them, and then that recycler reports the tonnage on plastics collected, and gets money from the state. That's the Cliff Notes version. It's disgusting, because reprocessing does not even figure into the exchange.
I have yet to see a plastic item which was manufactured from plastic bottle caps. I'm not saying it isn't done, but when I was researching recycling of #4 and #5 containers in recent months, I could not find a processor on the west coast that did much of anything with caps.
That being said, Stoneyfield Farm has that program where you're welcome to waste carbon on shipping your empty yogurt tubs to them, and then they waste carbon to ship them to Recycline in MA, who manufactures them into razor and toothbrush handles.
Yeah, I'm being snarky. It really is ridiculous how conservation simply does not figure into the plastics game as it is currently played, however.
[/snark]
Another comment on recycling - the catchy saying is REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE. There's a reason it's in that order. The best way to help the environment is to reduce the waste to begin with (like not buying things packaged in huge plastic packages), reuse as much as possible (shopping bags for example), and recycle what you can after a product's useful life. Did you know that only 1% of the 100 BILLION plastic bags Americans use each year ever get recycled?? That's unacceptable! There are several cute reusable bags now available in all price ranges so there's no excuse to not buy and use them. I just bought some fun but inexpensive ones online by a company called Ecologie Bags.
I know its not recycling, but there are places out there that benifit from turning in plastics. Your local schools earn money for every grocery bag turned in for them to recycle. Stonyfield Farms partners with a company( I belive it's called recycline) to make razors and other bathroom good out of their yogurt containers. Just take the time to find out where it can be reused, recycle what you can, push your city to do more, and try not to buy over packaged items. Spread the word too. If you can get your friends and family to change the way they shop and they sread the word (and so on and so on), them maybe it will eventually become a part of our culture and retailers will have to change!
I forgot to mention their website - www.ecologiebags.com in case you want to check them out. They've got info on why we should use reusable bags as well - http://www.ecologiebags.com/content.fsp?id=108671
Oh my God!! I can't believe it. I swore off your website years ago when you suggested recycling band-aides. I emailed you and said "Ya know, ya can't recycle band-aides." And your response? "Well the manufacturer says so." So "Welcome Back!!" I'd hoped there would be improvement. Wellllll.... this is what I find on my first day? A blooper of a tip on recycling? And some how it's mixed in with Obesity?
Arggg... I personally am a bonefide EXPERT in grabage and recycling. It's my career and it's how I pay my mortgage. Poor Toshio, where did you do your research? Would you call me next time? I'd be happy to reveiw your tips for accuracy.
BTW - Bio-plastics do not compost as fast as paper and will NEVER compost in your back yard.
One of the most excellent and informative tips the Bite has had in a while! I've got a pile of empty and, unfortunately, non-biodegradable plastic liquid laundry detergent and fabric softener bottles that have been taking up space in my cellar for quite a while now. They're all #2 (HDPE)plastic. I have no idea where to take them to be recycled as there is no place anywhere near me that takes them. (When you live out in the boonies as I do, you don't have a lot of options.)
Just wondering how to avoid buying stuff packaged in plastic. I wonder why English cucumbers are always sealed in plastic, while the other kind are not? I prefer the English ones - no seeds.
I figure I can make my own yoghurt from powdered milk bought in bulk, not so sure about cottage cheese. Where can I buy vegetable oil in bulk? Or is it better to buy it in gallon metal cans from the Italian grocery - are they recyclable?
I'm thinking about canning a bushel of tomatoes this year, to avoid buying tomatoes in cans that are lined with plastic.
Where can I buy liquid laundry detergent in bulk? I want to use the liquid because I have a front-loader machine; the powder creates too much foam. I've tried cutting down but then my clothes aren't clean enough.
I just wish the 'biodegradable' corn-based 'plastic' would take off with retailers, so that we could just toss the containers and not have to worry - trying to avoid plastic is like a full-time job!
I too have to weigh in on this issue since I have been involved in the plastics recycling business for 20 years now...
Plastics recycling is all about economics (making $$). That is why bottles are generally recyclable, while tubs (i.e. yogurt containers) are generally not. Look around the grocery store and see where the volumes of plastic containers are (how many soda bottles and milk jugs are sold for every margarine tub?). That is the economics that drives post-consumer plastics recycling.
Also, to correct some of your information in this tip: #2 is HDPE, but not all HDPE can be recycled together, as you suggest in the tip (milk jug + trash bag + yogurt cup). W/o getting too technical, a milk jug cannot be recycled w/ a yogurt tub, even tho both may have a #2 on the bottom. The reason is chemistry. The bottle is made from a very viscous HDPE (like molasses), while the tub is made from a very runny HDPE (like water). Mixing the two together yields an HDPE that cannot be molded back into a bottle or a tub! Kinda like baking a cake...you gotta have the right ingredients. It's complicated.
The code on the bottom of plastic containers was developed by the plastics industry in 1989 to help recyclers (not consumers) identify which resin type was used to manufacture the item. However, a plastics recycler knows the difference in plastic properties between a blow-molded bottle and a thermo-formed tray and an injection molded tub. And he knows how to process those various HDPE's back into useful products.
Caps and bags: most caps are made from polypropylene (#5). Caps are generally a problem in the trammels and pick-lines that sort out materials when they arrive commingled (mixed paper and plastic and steel cans, etc.). The same goes for plastic bags--they clog things up too. Hence they are generally not accepted curbside. But both are very recyclable technically. I used to sell truck loads of bottle caps (post-industrial) to folks that make nursery pots and other commodities and loads of bags to composite lumber manufacturers.
I hope that sheds a little light on a complex recycling issue: plastics.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Obesity | July 07, 2008 at 04:59 AM