What other plastics can be recycled if not marked?

Question

I am inquiring about those waxy plastic bags inside the cereal and cracker boxes. They seem to be a recyclable grade of plastic, but they do not have a symbol on them. After use, they are still fairly "clean" or the crumbs can be removed easily. And what about bread bags? Does anyone know where #3,4,5 & 6 plastics can be recycled? Our community only accepts #1 & 2.

We compost all of our organic garbage (except meat), campfire all our non-glossy paper trash, and recycle everything else that our community recycling centers accept. We even re-use styrofoam whenever we can. We only put out 1 bag of curbside garbage every 2 weeks and about 95% of that consists of "other" non-specified plastics. My goal is to get our landfill contribution down to 1 grocery sack size a week, or less.

Answer 1

More power to you elbow - if only everybody acted like you!

Most 'soft' plastic bags are Low Density Polythene - No.4 in the chart! I just collect all these and put them in the carrier bag recycling bin at the supermarket.

Hard plastics, again I just collect these and take them to the recycling centre/tip/dump at the end of Straight Road in Colchester where there is a skip for them.

One of the difficulties with the coding system is that it was introduced by the Plastic Federation some years ago as a way of identifying what type of plastic a product had been made from. Unfortunately they saw fir to put this number in the recycling triangle to appear to us that they were environmentally friendly. In fact all they were doing was easing their collective consciouses as, at the time, there wasn't the technology, desire or end products to recycle all plastics.

Expanded polystyrene is the hardest to recycle because there are so few collection and recycling plants in the country - the last time I looked there were only two! it is also one of the worst for volume and chemical damage.

Theoretically all plastics 1-6 can be recycled because of their chemical composition but there has to be:

- a method of collection

- the technology/plant to carry out the recycling

- products that can be made from the recycled plastic

- products people will buy

Realistically, only when there is the political will and clout to reduce the number of plastics used to only those that can readily be recycled (or use different materials) will the much maligned consumer be much clearer about their environmental responsibilities.

Answer 2

Call your local recycling plant and garbage company.  They will know how and where you can recycle everything...if you can at all.

Answer 3

It is better to save the cost of recycling these plastics, and just burn them in a burn barrel.