Fantastic Plastic!
Do you remember those commercials from a few years back? The ones that always ended with the saying, "Plastic makes it possible." From firefighters to astronauts, doctors to moms... plastic really does make a lot of things possible (or at least easier). Unfortunately, that plastic comes at a high cost to our environment. In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each, but recycled only about 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion in our landfills.
Let's start by learning a little about how plastic gets recycled. When plastic reaches the recycling plant, it is mechanically sorted by what type of plastic it is. (That's where the numbers on the milk jug come in...) The number designates what type of resin was used to produce the plastic. Each resin is different, so the number affects how and where you can recycle them. Here's a list of some common products of each type:
#1 PET (Polyethylene terephthalate): soda bottles, oven-ready meal trays and water bottles
#2 HDPE (High-density polyethylene): milk bottles, detergent bottles and grocery/trash/retail bags
#3 PVC (Polyvinyl chloride): plastic food wrap, loose-leaf binders and plastic pipes
#4 LDPE (Low-density polyethylene): dry cleaning bags, produce bags and squeezable bottles
#5 PP (Polypropylene): medicine bottles, aerosol caps, drinking straws and food containers (such as yogurt, ketchup bottles and sour cream/butter/hummus tubs)
#6 PS (Polystyrene): compact disc jackets, packaging Styrofoam peanuts and plastic tableware
#7 Other: reusable water bottles, certain kinds of food containers and Tupperware
Numbers 1 and 2 are the most common types, so they're generally the easiest to recycle.
Once the plastics are sorted, they are ground into tiny, plastic flakes. Then the plastic is cleaned and fed into a furnace where it is further processed or broken down into its individual parts. Then the resulting plastic polymer mixture is used to make new items like t-shirts, plastic lumber for backyard furniture, or soda bottles.
The energy saved by recycling one plastic bottle is enough to power a computer for 25 minutes, which is just long enough to catch up on your daily reads, check the weather, and shop for a new skirt. Make sure you're doing your part by recycling household plastics. Check with your recycling service for a detailed description of what types of plastic they take- don't let your knowledge go to waste!
Check back with us next week for the final installment of the Recycling Refresher.
-Whit.
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