Plastic Bag Recycling Confusion
- David New
- Dec 17
- 3 min read
Figuring out which plastic bags and film are recyclable, and which ones aren't, is one of the biggest challenges to successfully recycling the material. Labeling is infuriatingly inconsistent, confusing, and often non-existent.
Back in 1988, the Society of Plastic Engineers (SPI) developed the resin code system (chasing arrows with 1 through 7) as a way to help recyclers identify resins, and it has been confusing people ever since. The chasing arrows are a bit deceiving, as some of those numbers aren't really recyclable. Very few municipal recycling streams can handle #3-PVC, #6-Polystyrene, or #7-Other, meaning they are really trash and not recyclable. And applying a recycling symbol is purely voluntary, so most packaging has no markings at all.
Amost immediately after the introduction of the chasing-arrows 1-7 system, the industry was aware of the problems. Consumers interpreted the symbols as meaning “this is recyclable”, which was never the intended meaning. And there was also a mismatch with real-world recycling. Recycling infrastructure didn’t (and still doesn’t) align neatly with resin numbers. So this flawed system has persisted for over 35 years.
Almost all plastic bag recycling programs (including Obaggo) can only handle #2-HDPE and #4-LDPE. The contamination from other types of plastic drastically reduces the value and limits the end-use applications of the material.
To try to resolve the confusion problem, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition developed the How2Recycle labeling system. This brought its own new and different confusing messaging.
Never seen are the words "Not Recyclable" or "Throw This Away." Would you read the label below to mean this is a plastic bag, and therefore not recyclable, or if you happen to have a way to recycle plastic bags, well, this is a plastic bag, so maybe it is recyclable? (The bag below is generally considered recyclable).
The main way people who want to recycle their recyclable plastic bags can do so is by dropping them off at the specially-marked bins in the front of certain supermarkets. This system was never designed or intended to handle much more than 1 or 2% of the post-consumer plastic bag and film waste stream. Ask any supermarket store manager, and they'll tell you, they aren't in the recycling business, they're in the grocery business.
In most towns, even towns with 10,000 households, there may be only one or two stores with plastic bag recycling bins. Think of all the plastic film your household generates in a week, and then imagine you and your 10,000 neighbors taking them to the bins at the store. Would you even be able to get in the front door of the market? Clearly, if we are going to get serious about recycling bags and film, we are going to have to collect them outside the supermarket program.
When you combine the confusion created by the poor recyclability labeling, with the lack of adequate infrastructure to collect and process the material, the result is incredibly low recycling rates for the plastic bag and packaging film material. And what is recycled is understandably contaminated with plastics that aren't really recyclable. Can there be any wonder why we are at a recycling rate of about 1% nationally?
This is the reasoning behind the Obaggo solution. Obaggo is working to educate consumers about what plastic film is and is not recyclable, provide devices which densify the material into rigid objects which are more economical to collect, sort, and process, and increase the collection points to provide additional convenience. We are also working to demonstrate that this material can be made into useful new products (more on our Pilot Program in an upcoming newsletter).
Plastic bags and packaging film recycling isn’t failing because people don’t care — it's failing because confusing labels and inadequate collection systems make doing the right thing unnecessarily hard. Obaggo is trying to make it easier.
