What do the numbers in the triangles on the bottom of plastics mean?

Question

what are the ones you can and can't recycle?

Answer 1

Technically all numbers 1 thru 7 can be recycled. 1 being the easiest. 7 the most difficult to recycle. What your community takes in the program depends on what companies will pay them for it. They will buy the easiest ones to recycle. Styrofoam is a 6. Hard to collect, and recycle, cheap to make. When we buy products made with recycled content that helps.

Answer 2

The numbers in the little plastic triangles indicate how hard it is to recycle that material. 1 and 2 are the easiest and they continue to get higher the harder it is. Bottles and plastic bags tend to be easy to recycle since they are a 1 or a 2. I think you can pretty much put anything with a triangle in the recycle bin. I do and if they don't want it or can't recycle it they can do what they want with it, it just make me feel good that I didn't throw it in the trash. Make sure to recycle!

Answer 3

The numbers and abbreviations indicate the type of plastic, from 1 (PETE) to 7 (other). Which ones can be recycled depends on the recycling program. Almost all programs accept PET and HDPE. The ones that recycle the plastic into plastic "lumber" may take everything.

Answer 4

Type 1 and 2, easily. But you can recycle all of the other types at special facilities. Type six, also works as a shrinky -dink. This is very workable too! Hope this helped!

Answer 5

I thought I read, it meant how many times it had been recycled.  Of course, depending on what it will go for, a "new" product might use a higher  number, cause most of the usable properties have been  use up.....lol

We recycle all the numbers now in 90504