How and where to recycle plastic bags
Better than throwing them out into the garbage
First: Find out if your local curbside recycling program will accept plastic grocery bags.
Second: If you don't have city-wide curb-side recycling you can possibly drop off plastic grocery bags (Type 2 and Type 4) at your local grocery store. Look for the recycling bins inside the front of the store.
Third: Empty bags of receipts and other items and wash (or rinse) bags clean if necessary. You can use one bag to carry all the others to the store. Put them in the trunk of the car so you don't forget.
Plastic grocery bags come in 2 types: Type 2 (high-density polyethylene film - HDPE) and Type 4 (low density or linear-low density polyethylene film - LDPE/LLDPE).
What is made from plastic bags?
" In the U.S., one company buys half of the used plastic bags available on the open market in the United States, using about 1.5 billion plastic bags per year. That's Trex, based in Winchester, Va., which makes composite decking out of the bags and recycled wood. It takes some 2,250 plastic bags to make a single 16-foot-long, 2-inch-by-6-inch plank. It might feel good to buy decking made out of something that otherwise could have choked a sea turtle, but not so fast. That use is not an example of true recycling, points out Carol Misseldine, sustainability coordinator for the city of Oakland. "We're not recycling plastic bags into plastic bags," she says. "They're being downcycled, meaning that they're being put into another product that itself can never be recycled." Salon.com
Information Links:
The Society of the Plastics Industry
Drop-off locations
Curb side recycling often does not accept plastic bags
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