Tuesday, March 20, 2012

New Plastic Bag Recycling Web Site

Stumbled on to this new web site this morning that promotes recycling of plastic bags.

I've found a few surprises already, one being that the plastic wrap that toilet paper and paper towels come in are supposedly recyclable. Same with those plastic zip lock bags that nearly everyone uses. I had no idea.

Here's the page with an illustrated list of recyclable plastic bags. I'm a confused by their list of plastic bags not to add to recyclables which includes "NO other bags or films". What other kinds are left?

They have a page for retailers to add their names to the list of businesses that accept plastic bags. I'm sending an e-mail to them to let them know in California all grocery stores are required by law to have containers for people to drop of their plastic bags for recycling.

What I'm still curious about is whether all the other types of plastic are acceptable for drop off at those stores? I know plastic shopping bags are, but what about the paper towel wrappers?

And, for those in Eureka that are unaware, plastic bags should not be placed in your blue recycling containers until further notice.

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4 Comments:

At 8:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Henchman Of Justice" says,

Thanks Fred! One would think that only recycleable plastic bags and wrappings would be only produced these days. Apparantly, industry still uses non-recycleable plastics. Shameful.

HOJ

 
At 8:34 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Seems like you see it as a glass half empty while I see it as a glass half full. I was surprised that so many of the plastic bag types were recyclable.

We need to remember, though, that much of the recycling capability has to do with location and economics. For instance, local recycling doesn't accept plastic shopping bags as they lose money transporting them to be re-manufactured (probably true of some other recyclables, as well, as far as cost vs. benefit goes).

You can drop them off at just about any grocery store. That solves the problem on your end, but I'd think it's an added expense to the stores. Still, seems to be working well enough.

 
At 3:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

don't believe the hype on plastic bag recycling - it's a sham so the bag makers can continue to push more virgin plastic on you.

only about 5% of bags get recycled and there's no such thing as a 100% recycled bag.

just about anything is recyclable, the question is how efficient and profitable is it?

bag bans work!

http://www.cawrecycles.org/node/5232

 
At 4:15 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Sure, and by the time people like you ban everything you don't like, nobody will have a job or be able to do just about anything.

 

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