Why can't I recycle plastic bags and saran wrap?

Question

If we can recycle bottles, styrofoam and most plastic containers (in some communities), why can't we recycle plastic bags and wrap, broken toys and other forms of random plastic?

Answer 1

Plastic Bags can be recycled but what it comes down to with those is that the cost of collection and sorting is very steep and many companies don't want to deal with it. Broken toys can be as well however the problem with them is that many don't just contain plastic and once again the sorting issue becomes costly. Any contaminate can make the batch usless and in the case of metal being introduced dangerous as well. now saran or cling wrap is a different story... the resin that cling wrap is made of cannot be reextracted from the product without mass amounts of energy (more than it takes to make it from scratch) therefor it is a throwaway product... Also food contamination makes extracting the resin next to impossible because the slightest molecule of food can destroy any usefulness of the resin.

Answer 2

You can recycle any form of plastic that is marked with a symbol saying what it is made of (because mixed types have low value when recycled together). As far as plastic bags, any supermarket that collects returnable bottles also has a large barrel to put those plastic supermarket bags into.

As far as broken toys they are tougher because they are often a mix of materials but if they are one type (and have a plastic industry type designation) they can be recycled too. If your state does not make it easy to do that kind of recycling then complain to your legislators.

Answer 3

There are so many different kinds of plastics. The various kinds have different properties and different melting points. So far we only recycle the ones that are easiest to recycle and provide the greatest benefit all around. You can't mix the varieties.

Answer 4

you can recycle plastic grocery store bags AT the grocery store. Most have container in the front of the store to drop them into.