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Recycling Guide

  • First: All kinds of papers.
  • Second: Cans and bottles that have been rinsed.
  • Third: Biodegradables, such as fruit peels and vegetables that can be used as organic composite.
  • Fourth: Non-recyclables.

Not all Plastics
belong in the Recycling Bin

Article By David Benson Pressof Atlantic City - http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com

People want to do the right thing and recycle their plastics - especially if it's easy.

At the homes of environmentally conscious people across southern New Jersey, nearly every piece of polymer winds up at curb's edge awaiting the recycling truck. Plastic caps are often screwed onto empty soda bottles: Hard-plastic cat litter containers are filled with other plastics and left at the curb; huge plastic toys that have outlasted youthful exuberance find their way to the familiar blue barrel.

Yet not all plastic can be recycled. Municipal authorities don't like to use the word "trash" when talking about any kind of plastic, but some types of polymers just don't have a market. Those plastics have to be sorted out of the recycling stream and dumped into a landfill. The plastic caps on soda bottles are one example.

"It's better to at least get the bottles," said John Baron, solid waste program manager for the Cape May County Municipal Utilities Authority. "If they show up with their lids on, the lids will disappear."

Most people have seen the triangle of chasing arrows surrounding a number imprinted into many plastics. It's called a resin code, and that code is supposed to be a declaration of recyclability.

"Some people think they should throw everything plastic into the recycling bin," said Dennis DeMatte, recycling coordinator for the Cumberland County Improvement Authority. "Those numbers make the consumers think that all plastic can be recycled."

Plastic is supposed to be reusable. Much of it is, depending upon where a customer lives and what code is stamped into the polymer. Plastic soda bottles normally have a number 1 stamped into them. The caps to those bottles, if they're stamped at all, have a number 5.

"The two biggest issues for recycling," said George Owens, operations manager for the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, "are market and storage."

The resin code tells the tale. Plastics with a 1 or 2 are easily recycled. From the curb, to the truck, to the warehouse, to a buyer: It's a steady, unbroken stream of old plastic into new.

But polymers marked 3 through 7 are more difficult to market. PVC pipes, dry cleaning bags, Barbie dolls, Big Wheel tricycles, Styrofoam peanuts and Tupperware are all plastics that could be recycled - if a buyer could be found.

"There isn't a market for those," Owens said. "And we can't store them because of space and environmental issues." That's the fault of the manufacturers who use plastics that, once they're used, have no buyers for recycling, DeMatte said. "This should be on the industry's back," he said.

Different polymers have different melting points, DeMatte said; "When they get recycled, they can't be mixed together." It falls to the municipal authorities to make sure different grades of plastic do not make it into the same recycling streams. The authorities in each county do not actually recycle anything. Their warehouses are collection, separation and distribution points.

Contamination can ruin a load of recyclables. Plastic caps for soda bottles and milk jugs don't have the same recyclability as the bottle. The numbers are different. So are the future uses.

Cigarettes and cigars stubbed out in bottles or aluminum cans are also considered contamination. Sometimes food scraps are mixed in with paper. Other times waxed cardboard - such as a meat or fruit cartons - is piled with plain cardboard. Wax and food contaminate the load.

If a load has too many contaminants, the recyclables buyer can refuse to pay. Worse, the buyer can refuse to take the load. That doesn't happen too often, Owens said. The ACUA has sorters: employees who pick through a steady stream of plastic, tossing out those bits that could contaminate a load - plastic caps, toys and cat litter containers.

Toys and the litter buckets are known as rigid plastics. They are problematic for many recycling authorities. But last year, Cape May County found a buyer and started a limited collection of rigid plastics.

It was a pilot program, Baron said, one that has grown into a regular part of the county's recycling. Cape May County accepts the litter containers, plastic toys of all kinds, even the Big Wheel tricycles that have a metal rod attaching the wheels to the frame.