By Steve Davies, Healthy Planet columnist
So, as we talked about last time, plastic bags are everywhere with perhaps the most common ones again being those number 2’s. Now if you’ve been around as long as someone such as myself has been, it’s safe to say you’re familiar with the number 1’s and 2’s. Those are the numbers you’ll see on many of the plastic bottles and other containers you find on the shelves at your local grocery and department stores, from laundry detergent to shampoo to soda bottles.
That said, bags are a little different. The most common one’s here are still the number 2, along with another number, that being the number 4. Now as I talked about last month, this is also what makes it confusing for many consumers. The containers that the various stores put out to collect their bags, never say what number plastic bags they accept. Once again, as someone who has recycled for nearly as long as I’ve lived here, I only learned about the number 4’s due to another local newspaper in our neighborhood, the Webster-Kirkwood Times and their marketing campaign.
Until recently, they used to label their bags they put their newspapers in with the number 4 but, now it appears that they’ve removed the number and have now simply written THIS BAG IS RECYCLABLE in big, bold letters. They’ve also written at the bottom of the front page that they “can be recycled with your other recyclables. Our classic red bags can be recycled at any grocery store or other location that accepts grocery bags/single use plastics. There’s also a box at our office”
Now, the other plastic product that I wanted to cover this month is bubble wrap and the issue I see here is in fact, two-fold. If they’re not going to clearly state the numbers on the recycling bins, they should at least say that bubble wrap is accepted. After all, most bubble wrap is labeled as number 4.
It seems to me that these recycling bins are an excellent place to help educate consumers. The majority of consumers, I believe, understand that there are plastics, numbered 1 through 7. If we could just label the bins as to what numbers they accept, that would help. As any company that does marketing will tell you, such as the Webster-Kirkwood Times, educating consumers is key.
Feel free to contact me at thprecycler@yahoo.com with questions or comments.