Courtesy of Waste Management
NO. 1 (PET OR PETE, NICKNAME: POLYESTER)
Clear, like glass. Drinkables, salad dressing, peanut butter and jelly, even pickles make their homes inside No. 1 plastic. After recycling, No. 1 plastics become polyester fiber for carpets, sleeping bags and fleece clothing.
NO. 2 (HDPE)
The most-often recycled plastic, downcycled into plastic lumber, tables, roadside curbs, benches, truck cargo liners, water pipes, Hula-Hoop rings, trash receptacles, stationery (e.g. rulers), milk, juice and water bottles, and other durable plastic products and is usually in demand.
NO. 3 (PVC, VINYL)
PVC, while known to be more toxic than other plastics, has a high-impact strength that makes is handy for shrink-wrap, deli and meat wrap, and shower curtains, as well as those devilishly difficult food blister packs and heaven-sent medical tubing and blood bags. Once recycled, it becomes binders, flooring, traffic cones and rain gutters.
NO. 4 (LDPE)
Tough, flexible and transparent, No. 4 is the packaging of choice for dry-cleaning and grocery bags. Newspapers, bread and frozen foods come wrapped in it. Easily processed, it becomes shipping envelopes, floor tile, furniture, crop film and plastic lumber.
NO. 5 (PP)
High melting point, so it's perfect for coffee cups and takeout meals. You know it by its soft, waxy feel (straws), but it also cradles yogurt, margarine and medications. In round two it shows up as brooms, brushes, oil funnels, garden rakes and storage bins.
NO. 6 (PS)
Rigid (as in cups, cutlery, aspirin bottles) or foamed (puffed up for meat/poultry trays, egg cartons, packing peanuts). Its reincarnation breathes new life into insulation, rulers, license plate frames, and foam packaging (like takeout containers).
NO. 7 (OTHER)
Catchall number for combinations of Nos. 1 through 6, or anything else. Less porous resins like nylon, Plexiglas, and the lamination on beverage bottles are all found here, including the heavy 3-to 5-gallon reusable water bottles and some citrus juice and ketchup bottles. When recycled, the ever-popular bottles and plastic lumber result.
After being sorted, baled and shipped, bottles go to a plastic processing plant and are sorted again. Different colors are sorted then chipped then shipped on to another plant. Chipped plastic arrives at a processing plant and pellets are made of the chips. Fiber is manufactured into products like fleece, carpeting and sleeping bags.
Recycle your PET
(No, not Fido, your polyethylene terephthalate)
By Whitney Chandler
Over 2.54 million plastic bottles are used each hour in America. First introduced to the world in the 1970s, plastic bottles are now more popular than glass. In the recycling world, recycled soda and water bottles are referred to as Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). Once PET plastic is sorted from single stream recycling, it is stripped of all labels and caps and sorted by color in order ensure re-manufacture into a predictable color. The plastic is then sterilized, crushed, chopped into confetti-size pieces, melted and reformed into a new product. PET bottles can be converted into thread used by carpet and clothing companies, allowing them to live up to their claims of “going green.” Steamboat's own BAP! store uses thread made from recycled plastic bottles to make tents, ski jackets, and even sleeping bags. The production of these recycled products is said to keep three million bottles out of the landfill every year and saves half a million barrels of oil annually.
Our government's own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that it takes two-thirds less energy to produce recycled products than to continue with “business as usual.” This means there are 400,000 fewer tons of harmful air emissions coming from these production companies. The EPA says the fossil fuels saved from refraining from the use of virgin material is enough to power a city the size of Atlanta for an entire year. The EPA also notes recycling uses 90% less water than manufacturing with virgin material. Seeing as Americans use two-million plastic bottles every hour it is a relief to know they are not all landing up in our landfills.
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