The Ecoist – That triangle, arrow thing means something is recyclable, right?
Posted by Eco-Products on Mar 10th 2015
We wish it were that simple. To explain what this symbol really means, we should first explain how recycling works.
Recyclers are in the business of gathering a bunch of “stuff” from people like you and me, sorting it by material, then selling those materials to others who will use it to make new products (instead of using virgin materials). We love this.
The problem is that this became a lot more complicated when our society started to use more plastic. The recyclers couldn’t easily tell one kind of plastic from another. For example, #1 plastic is PET, the type of plastic commonly used in water and soda bottles. It is different from #2, which is commonly used in milk and laundry jugs. Numbers 3-7 signify still more kinds of plastic, including the catch-all #7, which means any plastic that isn’t a pre-defined #1 – #6.
Buyers are usually only looking for one kind of plastic, so the plastics industry created a numbering system that uses the “chasing arrow” symbol. While this system has helped recyclers identify which plastic resin an item is made out of so it can be sorted properly, unfortunately many have come to believe this symbol means something is unquestionably recyclable.
In reality, something is only recyclable if there is a buyer lined up to purchase the material. Given the ebbs and flows of the market, this varies from community to community, and even from month to month in any given location. In order to minimize consumer confusion and ensure a steady supply of materials to work with, many recyclers will accept #1 – #7 even if they don’t always have buyers for all of those materials.
The only way to know if something is truly recyclable is to call your local recycling facility and specifically ask which materials they have buyers for.
How long has it been since you’ve cracked open a learning module? There’s a quick module called “All about Resin Codes” that dives into this topic. Get a fuller understanding of the end-of-life portion of our products’ life cycles at the “Recycling” training module which takes a deeper look at the recycling system and how Eco-Products fits in.
Our very own Sustainability Maven served up this delicious nugget of green geekery for us today. If this little taste leaves you hungry for more, you can always cruise over to the Greenology and/or Training sections at EcoProducts.com for a full helping. If you have a question you can’t find the answer to you can email her at sustainabilitymaven@ecoproducts.com.
