Plastic recycling by the numbers
I have a confession to make: I've been throwing most of my plastic containers into the recycling bin, regardless of their recycling number. I've washed them and removed their labels. I've scraped off the warning that this prescription drug shouldn't be consumed with milk. I've done it all in my desperate fantasy that all the plastic I use can be recovered.
Should I go to the confessional? Do a few lashes with switches of birch?
Whatever. Here are the most commonly recycled plastics:
Number one and number two plastics are the most common and most easily recycled plastics. Number one plastics are items like soda bottles and the cute plastic container your seaweed salad came packaged in.
Number two plastics tend to be items like laundry detergents, milk and motor oil.
Number six is also widely accepted. That's Styrofoam, packaging peanuts and the like. I've read on Ask.com it can be made into insulation foam.
In my neck of the woods those are the only plastics that are accepted for recycling. None of my yogurt containers (#5), prescription bottles (#5) or plastic cups (#5) are recyclable. New York City has a similar policy. Seattle and Los Angeles are likewise limited.
If only I lived in Sonoma County, where every type of plastic can be recycled.
According to these cities' Web sites the effort needed to recycle a lot of our plastics just isn't worth it.
For now, maybe I'll send my plastic pill bottles and yogurt cups via jet to Sonoma. I'll save the landfills one private jet at a time!
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