How To Recycle Plastic Bags, Wraps, and Films
Plastic packaging plays a tremendous role in the mass production of consumer goods; it’s relatively inexpensive to produce and it keeps things clean and dry throughout the production process. However, despite the usefulness of plastic packaging, it’s one of the most common pollutants in the environment, endangering life on land and in the ocean.
While the best way to keep plastic bags out of the environment is to not use them at all, it’s impossible to avoid them completely. The good news is that we can recycle many common types of plastic bags, wraps, and films, including grocery bags, zip top bags, stretchy wraps, and much more. But don’t put plastic bags into your recycling bin. Instead, collect them at home, then take them to a drop-off location near you!
Trying to figure out what can and can’t be recycled – and how – can cause quite the headache. Fortunately, recycling plastic bags, wraps, and films is quite easy to do. In this guide I answer all of your frequently asked questions about plastic film recycling so that you can incorporate it into your own green lifestyle with ease!
Photo by Oleksandr Sushko
Why recycle plastic bags, wraps, and films?
You’ve probably seen images of turtles or dolphins mistakenly eating plastic bags, which are commonly mistaken for food. Sadly, this is just one of the ways in which animals are affected by plastic pollution.
According to Clean Water Action, plastic bags are among the most common sources of marine debris. Plastic bags endanger marine animals including birds, mammals, fish, and sea turtles in a number of ways. Not only are plastic bags commonly mistaken for food, but they can cause entanglement that can lead to suffocation, infection, and even drowning.
Additionally, plastic bags, like other kinds of plastic, are petroleum-based products. That means they’re made from a non-renewable resource. It also means that plastic bags are not biodegradable and take hundreds of years to break down in the environment or in a landfill. Even then, it never fully goes away; microplastics persist in the environment and can eventually end up in our bodies, studies show.
According to Earth911, recycling a ton of plastic film products (the equivalent of about 450,000 plastic bags) saves 11 barrels of oil. While it may seem like no big deal to throw away a plastic bag, Americans will go through about 5 trillion plastic bags in 2023 alone. While avoiding plastic products is exemplary, recycling the ones that end up in your life anyway is just as important to further reduce our reliance on virgin materials.
Can you put plastic bags in the recycling bin?
While many plastic bags, wraps, and films are indeed recyclable, they should never be placed in the recycling bin (unless otherwise specified). At the time of writing, there are only a select handful of recycling programs in the nation that accept plastic bags in curbside recycling.
The reason why you can’t put plastic bags, wraps, and films in commingled recycling (that also means not bagging your recyclables!) is because they are the most common reason for equipment malfunctions at recycling sorting facilities. What happens is that the stretchy plastic materials get wrapped around the gears and cogs of the sorting equipment or along the conveyor belts. They are incredibly difficult to remove, and have to be cut out by hand by recycling workers, costing valuable time and money in a business that’s already struggling.
What types of plastic bags, wraps, and films are recyclable?
Most people know that plastic bags from grocery stores or take-out are recyclable, but there are many more kinds of plastic bags, wraps, and films that you can recycle through plastic film recycling!
Before we get into some examples, we’ll go over the types of plastics that plastic packaging is made of. Most recyclable plastic packaging is one of two flexible plastics: high-density polyethylene (HDPE) or low-density polyethylene (LDPE). HDPE is commonly labeled as a #2 plastic while LDPE is commonly labeled as #4. Linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and medium-density polyethylene (MDPE) are two other types of plastic that can be found in packaging.
While not always labeled, you can tell if plastic packaging is recyclable if it has the #2 or #4 recycling symbol or if it has a How2Recycle label. Still, not all recyclable plastic bags, wraps, and films are labeled, so here’s a comprehensive list of which plastic bags, wraps, and films you can recycle:
Shopping bags
Produce bags
Carryout bags
Plastic wrap
Ziplock or other zip top bags
Dry cleaning plastic
Ice bags
Bread bags
Newspaper bags
Beverage case wrap
Paper towel wrap
Bathroom tissue wrap
Diaper wrap
Shipping pillows (deflate first)
Bubble wrap (deflate first)
Plastic shipping envelopes (remove labels first)
Plastic cereal box liners (only if stretchy)
Stretchy six-pack rings
Did you know that all of these plastic bags and wraps are actually recyclable?
Keep in mind, in order to avoid contamination and possibly prevent the plastics from being recycled, they all have to be: clean, dry, and free of food residue and non-plastic bits such as metal. My trick for drying plastic bags (especially ice bags) is hanging them upside down to dry on a drying rack or from the fridge with a magnet!
Plastic bags that are not recyclable
While a surprising number of types of plastic packaging are recyclable, not all plastic bags, wraps, and films are. One rule of thumb is that any stiff or “noisy” plastic packaging is not recyclable. That’s because this type of plastic is neither HDPE or LDPE but rather Polypropylene (PP). Polypropylene is characterized by its clear appearance and high-tensile strength. In other words, it’s not stretchy and not recyclable.
Additionally, plastic bags or wraps that are dirty or wet are not considered recyclable. If you can’t easily get food or oil residue off of a plastic bag, it’s best to toss it rather than to risk contaminating a batch of recyclable plastic. Don’t be guilty of wishcycling!
Here are some other examples of plastic bags that aren’t recyclable:
Frozen food bags
Prewashed salad mix bags
Biodegradable or compostable plastic bags
Cling wrap
Candy and snack wrappers
Metallized chip bags
Paper-lined bags
Mailers or pouches with attached paper labels
Packaging with a “Not Yet Recyclable” label
Hard six-pack rings
While it might be discouraging to see what isn’t yet recyclable, it’s important to keep in mind that that’s through no fault of your own, but rather the manufacturer. Moreover, the only way for recycling to be effective is if only recyclable items are recycled. High levels of contamination can cause entire batches of recyclables to be taken to the landfill, which is essentially the same as throwing away all of your recycling effort!
To keep your recycling effective, keep this in mind: when in doubt, throw it out.
How to recycle plastic bags, wraps, and films
Now that you know what plastic bags you can and can’t recycle, you can keep valuable materials out of the landfill by recycling them instead!
Collect used plastic bags
Start by collecting all recyclable plastic bags, wraps, and films in a convenient location. I recommend keeping a designated plastic bag or trash bag by your commingled recycling, under the sink, or in a closet. The nice thing about plastic packaging is that it easily compacts, making it convenient to collect, store, and transport!
If you want to go the extra mile, reuse your plastic bags before recycling them. You can wash and reuse most ziplock bags, shopping bags, and even produce bags. Recycle them once they have holes or are no longer useful.
Drop off at a plastic bag collection near you
Once you’ve collected enough plastic packaging to fill a plastic bag or trash bag, you can take them to a plastic film collection near you. The good news is that many grocery stores accept them, so it’s as easy as throwing the “bag of bags” in your car and dropping them off next time you do groceries!
If you’re not sure which store near you accepts plastic film recycling, you can enter your zip code into Earth911’s Where To Recycle search bar. You can also find a drop-off location near you at BagandFilmRecycling.org.
Make use of the products made with recycled plastic
Lastly, you can support the plastic film recycling industry by purchasing products made with recycled plastic bags, wraps, and films. Note, because of the mix of plastic materials, most recycled plastic bags do not get recycled into new plastic bags. Instead, they are usually shredded, melted down, and turned into new materials such as synthetic lumber.
For example, Trex, one of the nation’s leading plastic recyclers, makes synthetic lumber decking, benches, and more!
What do you do with plastic bags? Have you ever recycled them? Tell us more about your experience or challenges in recycling by commenting below!
