Plastic water bottles can go in the recycling bin, but what about paper coffee cups with a glossy plastic coating? Or those crinkly clamshell single-use plastic food containers? And what's so bad about putting plastic bags in with your recycling, anyway?
The Guardian has done its best to answer those and other tricky questions as part of its United States of Plastic series.
Take paper coffee cups. The "thin, plastic coating inside the cup may prevent leakage, but it’s extremely difficult to separate it from the paper cup itself," The Guardian's Charlotte Simmonds writes. "That means the cups can’t be recycled as paper, nor can they be recycled as plastic."
Same goes for the plastic coffee cup lids that come with paper coffee cups: "[D]ue to the low quality of the plastic, they aren’t particularly attractive to buyers of secondhand plastic, and in any event they tend to fragment into small, unusable pieces."
Clamshell plastic food containers are also "poor candidates for recycling in the [United States]," per The Guardian. The containers "are low quality and made of different kinds of plastics".
As for dropping plastic bags in with your recycling – or putting your recycling in plastic bags – don't. Just don't.
“Often recycling centers’ multimillion-dollar processing machines have to shut down every half-hour because the plastic bags get jammed into the equipment,” Mitch Hedlund of Recycle Across America told The Guardian.
Plastic bags that you no longer need should be taken to businesses that accept them for recycling.
Consult Rumpke for guidelines on what types of items they do and do not accept for recycling. You can also call 1 (800) 828-8171.
Posts
