Plastic Recycling and the Environment
Plastic recycling is the new environmental policy trend in communities across the nation. Last year, a statewide law went into effect in California to provide at-store plastic bag recycling in every community. Plastic recycling is now greatly expanded. Products and empty containers labeled with resin codes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are now acceptable. Plastic recycling is relatively new and has a growing infrastructure. In addition, weather (wind, rain, snow, and even sun) in Summit County makes recycling plastic bags extremely difficult as they must be dry to be shipped and are easily blown away.
Plastic recycling is very fast developing field of recycling. The post consumer items made from PET and HDPE resins have found reliable markets. Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products.
Compared to glass or metallic materials, plastic poses unique challenges?because of the massive number of types of plastic, they each carry a resin identification code , and must be sorted before they can be recycled.
Greenpeace and other organizations have documented conditions at recycling facilities in countries that import this material and have found conditions to be hazardous and exploitive. In addition, Greenpeace found that exported plastics were very poorly sorted. Green Building Council to develop the store and is planning to build others like it. Greenpeace says embracing the three Rs – reduce, re-use and recycle – would help tackle the problem. Plastic recycling is lagging well behind paper and cardboard.
Types of plastics are assigned a number, called a resin identification code , which is usually stamped or printed on the bottom of containers and surrounded by a recycling symbol (a triangle of arrows).
Many programs exist in the United States and the reduction of weight in numerous packaging applications has been significant over the last 25 years. Type 4 is less commonly recycled. The other types are generally not recycled, except perhaps in small test programs.
PVC cannot easily be mixed with other plastics for recycling because it releases toxic additives when melted down. PVC has a low melt point and produces acidic by-products when it burns. They are the most valuable plastics, but unsuitable to our application.
