Plastic is everywhere in our daily lives. It makes life easier in many ways, from lightweight packaging that’s cheap to produce to durable electronics and even furniture.
Looking around right now, you’ll likely see several plastic products nearby.
While many of us were taught to recycle early, we often hover over the bin, asking, “Can I recycle this?”
Unfortunately, this poor understanding of plastic recycling best practices often leads to everyday items like plastic bags, milk jugs, and water bottles being sent to landfills instead of recycled into new plastic products.
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- Plastic Recycling Symbol & Number Explained
- Symbol #: PET or PETE (Recyclable)
- Symbol #: HDPE (Recyclable)
- Symbol #: PVC (Not Recyclable)
- Symbol #: LDPE (Sometimes Recyclable)
- Symbol #: PP (Sometimes Recyclable)
- Symbol #: PS (Sometimes Recyclable)
- Symbol #: Other (Sometimes Recyclable)
- When in Doubt, Leave it Out
- Why is Recycling Plastic Important?
- How is Plastic Recycled?
Plastic Recycling Symbol & Number Explained
A plastic product is often stamped with a resin code, a number between 1 and 7 set inside the small triangle of arrows. However, the presence of a resin code doesn’t necessarily mean that the product can be recycled.
The number corresponds to each of the different types of plastic, and not all plastic is recycled equally. Many plastic-based products cannot break down and thus cannot be recycled.
Often, if you see a number 1 or 2 inside the recycling symbol, that plastic is recyclable. However, it’s always best to check with your area’s recycling provider before placing items in your curbside bin.
While most United States municipalities take similar recyclables, some significant differences should be adhered to avoid contaminating your local recycling stream. Find out how and what you can recycle at BeRecycled.org or contact your local recycling entity.
If you’re still stuck, many popular retailers like Amazon have website guides for adequately recycling their packaging.
Symbol #1: PET or PETE (Recyclable)
PET or PETE (Polyethylene terephthalate) is the most common plastic. It is used to make bottles for soda, water, and other drinks. It’s also used to make cooking oil containers, plastic peanut butter jars, and containers for other popular food items, although these items are trickier to sort into your recycling.
Yogurt containers or butter tub lids may or may not be collected in your local community, so check before tossing them in your blue bin.
Recycling PET plastic bottles is easy, meaning the neck is skinnier than the body. Plastic bottles, whether large, small, wide, or thin, typically go into the recycling bin.
Recyclers usually want your bottle caps, too. But unless they’ve been twisted back into a bottle, they can fall through spaces in recycling equipment.
So, before tossing them into the blue bin, ensure the caps are screwed on. It’s also important to squeeze or wash the bottle to remove as much of its original contents as possible.
You can also drop off PET bottles at bottle bill depots in the U.S. for a small refund, which incentivizes recycling. Most often, bottles that qualify will have a “Bottle Bill” code or “Deposit” code on the packaging.
If your local community doesn’t yet have a bottle bill or deposit program, this Bottle Bill Resource Guide can help you start one.
Symbol #2: HDPE (Recyclable)
HDPE (High-density polyethylene) plastics are also common. They’re used to make milk jugs, shampoo bottles, cleaning product containers, and detergent bottles, to name a few. These plastics are also widely recyclable in most areas.
For lotion bottles and other toiletry items with pumps, empty the contents, discard the pump, and recycle the bottle. For containers without pumps, empty the contents, re-screw the cap to keep it together, and recycle.
While most people believe every drop of liquid must be washed out for the item to be accepted by a recycling facility, this is a myth.
Plastics will be cleaned at the recycling facility. To reduce waste, use all the products in the bottle, then lightly rinse and recycle them.
Some products that can be made from recycled HDPE include crates, film plastic, floor tiles, gardening tools, other non-food bottles, and even recycling bins!
Symbol #3: PVC (Not Recyclable)
PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) is a soft, flexible plastic used in household products such as plastic tubing, kids’ toys, plastic trays, and furniture. Given its widespread use and relative toxicity, it is often termed the “poison plastic” in plastic products.
PVC plastic is the third most common type used in the U.S. and the U.K. market. Over 7 billion pounds are thrown away annually in America, and only 0.1 to 3 percent of it is recycled.
Worldwide, over 300 billion pounds of PVC are in use and will soon reach the end of their life and require disposal.
Perhaps worse than its inability to be recycled, PVC manufacturing creates a byproduct called dioxins.
According to the World Health Organization, dioxins are highly toxic, leading to developmental and reproductive disease, immune system damage, and cancer. Because PVC is difficult to recycle, it is often burned in incinerators, emitting dioxin into the atmosphere.
Disposing of PVC in landfills can result in dioxin poisoning of landfills and groundwater.
Although PVC is complicated to recycle, you should check with your local curbside recycling collection office or recycling drop-off center to confirm.
Rarely can PVC be recycled into lower-quality products, such as binders, cables, carpet backing, park benches, pipes, speed bumps, and traffic cones.
Symbol #4: LDPE (Sometimes Recyclable)
LDPE (Low-density polyethylene) is transparent plastic used in shrink wrap, sandwich bags, produce bags, and squeezable ketchup bottles. It’s also used to make grocery bags and bags for newspapers and sliced bread loaves.
LDPE is ideal for all applications because it is oil-resistant, chemical-resistant, flexible, and transparent. LDPE plastics can be recycled into garbage can liners, shipping envelopes, plastic lumber, and more.
While LDPE plastic often can’t be recycled in curbside bins because it gets caught in recycling equipment, some supermarkets in the U.S. and Canada accept it for recycling. Check with your local grocery store to see if they have a program in your area.
If you can’t recycle these plastics using this method, look for a way to use them around your home so you don’t send them to the landfill. Or better yet, try to avoid them entirely by opting for cloth or mesh reusable shopping bags, producing bags, and wrapping your leftovers in reusable wraps like these.
Symbol #5: PP (Sometimes Recyclable)
PP (Polypropylene) is another type of plastic used to make food containers. It’s also made of straw, rope, carpet, and bottle caps. With a high melting point, PP plastics are also great at preventing moisture transmission and are virtually inert in the face of things like acids and solvents. As such, you’ll find them used for medical tools and automotive parts.
Though less common than PET or HDPE plastics, knowing how to recycle PP plastics is no less critical. Check with your local curbside program to see if they accept PP plastics.
If not, mail-in and drop-off programs like this one exist. Search for a PP #5 drop-off program in your area—you may be surprised that it’s more convenient than you thought!
Symbol #6: PS (Sometimes Recyclable)
PS (Polystyrene) plastic is commonly used to make disposable coffee cups, packing peanuts, coolers, and to-go food containers. Styrofoam products are made of PS plastic.
PS products are notoriously hard to recycle and do not fully decompose in landfills, making them exceptionally detrimental to the environment. As such, some states in the U.S. have banned or are set to ban the use of PS containers.
While you should avoid using Styrofoam products if possible, you may have an errant to-go container that you don’t want to throw in the trash. Check with your local curbside program, and if they don’t accept it in their blue bin, check out programs like this one working to find a foam home.
Symbol #7: Other (Sometimes Recyclable)
Any plastic that doesn’t fit into one of the first six categories falls under this “other” heading. Products stamped with a seven are often made of multiple plastic or other types that can’t easily be recycled.
If you have a plastic product without a number and are trying to figure out how to recycle it, it is likely in this category.
There are a few ways to find a recycling location for number seven plastics.
If you have a bio-based plastic, also known as polylactic acid (PLA) plastic, it should be sent to commercial composting facilities. Generally, these cannot be composted in your backyard compost bin. They should also not be mixed with other plastics in your recycling bin as they can be mistaken for things like HDPE or LDPE and contaminate recycling batches.
If your mystery plastic is not bio-based, check with your curbside recycling program or search online for a take-back program.
When in Doubt, Leave it Out
The tips above should make recycling plastics easier, but there may still be instances when you’re unsure how to recycle something. Of course, you can always check online, but when in doubt, leave it out.
Plastic items like old video cassette tapes, garden hoses, CDs, and bowling balls do more than take up space. They can damage expensive recycling equipment, contaminate an otherwise valuable stream of recyclable material, and make it unusable.
Additionally, it would be best not to bag your recyclables before placing them in your bin because plastic bags can get stuck in the equipment.
Why is Recycling Plastic Important?
It can end up in gutters and storm drains.
When plastic is sent to landfills – or worse, littered – it can end up in gutters and storm drains, eventually polluting our oceans. Experts say that by 2050, there may be more plastic than fish in the sea: a bleak future for our planet if we don’t make some changes in the present.
Plastic can take hundreds of years to biodegrade.
Plastic can take hundreds of years to biodegrade, between 500 and 1,000 years for some types. This means it takes up space in landfills or often in nature, polluting the environment for an astronomical amount compared to the timeframe in which it is functional.
Recycling plastic can also conserve limited natural resources and energy
Because plastic is made from oil, the more plastic is recycled, and the less made from raw materials, the more oil is conserved.
Extracting and processing raw materials cause greenhouse gas emissions
Extracting and processing raw materials cause greenhouse gas emissions on a much larger scale than creating a recycled product requires. Recycling also reduces the need for incinerators, the energy they require, and the pollution they produce. Plus, growth in the recycling industry creates more jobs.
Creating a Circular Plastic Economy
When we recycle plastic properly, we contribute to circularity. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, circularity is when products are designed to be used efficiently for as long as possible and also to be recovered and recycled into new products at the end of their useful life.
Technology has advanced recently, and circularity is on the rise. While we can’t always control how our products are made, we can control our recycling habits.
People’s recovery and proper sorting of these recyclable items are vital to creating a circular economy for plastic and beyond.
How is Plastic Recycled?
Now that you know how to recycle each type of plastic, have you ever wondered how the plastic is recycled? Before being recycled, plastics are sorted according to their resin type, either manually, using mechanized, automated processes, or even by color.
Following sorting, there are two main ways to recycle plastic: mechanical recycling, where plastic is washed, ground, and melted, or chemical recycling, where plastic is broken down into monomers to form new polymers to be reused.
To use HDPE plastic as an example, the containers are ground into small plastic chips called flakes. Then, the flake is washed, separating dirt and non-HDPE plastic. One way different types of plastic are divided is by their density.
The lighter-weight plastic (such as HDPE) floats when put in water, and the heavier plastic sinks.
After separation, the flake is dried, melted, extruded through a die, then cut into a pellet. This allows a uniform raw material to be returned to a new product.
Through a process called blow molding, the pellet can be used by manufacturers to make new plastic products.
Depending on the kind of plastic, recycling might give a product new life, such as fiber for clothing, carpeting, car parts, or strapping. It could also become a cutting board, a durable outdoor deck, a bench, plastic lumber, playground equipment, or maybe even a recycling bin.
BeRecycled.org has a detailed infographic to walk you through the recycling process for many everyday recyclable items.
Final Thoughts on Plastic Recycling Symbols & Numbers
If possible, avoid single-use plastics entirely. Using less single-use plastic is the best way to help the environment.
While it’s clear that plastic is everywhere and relatively complex to avoid, a few simple behavior changes can significantly reduce your footprint.
Bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, refusing to take a plastic straw for your iced coffee, and choosing to purchase items packaged in paper or cloth are just a few ways to help.
Plastic-free alternatives to common household items are on the rise, with many companies realizing that consumers are more discerning about their environmental footprint than ever before.
Companies like the Package Free Shop, Grove Collaborative, or Thrive Market sell common household items without all that added paper. Websites like Earthday.org offer guides for making your shower plastic-free without breaking the bank or making your daily hygiene ocean-friendly.
Just a few lifestyle changes per person and proper recycling etiquette can go a long way toward saving our planet.
Related content: How to Reduce Plastic Use
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