Recycling Plastics

Recycling's one of the eco-friendliest things you can do with already-purchased containers, and it's easy once you learn the ropes.

Ideal Bite

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.

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).

Commonly questioned items:

* 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.

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