Are Items We Put in the Recycling Bin Actually Recyclable?

 Are Items We Put in the Recycling Bin Actually Recyclable? 

Grace Hyunjoo Lee

We see the "chasing arrows" symbol on numerous items in grocery stores and shops, but what does that really mean? Does that mean it is recyclable?

Actually, no. This symbol is only for showing what type of plastic it is made from, not if it's recyclable or not. We have to understand that not every item that has the “chasing arrows” symbol is recyclable; the numbers in the middle of the symbol are what’s important. The following is the different numbers and what they represent.

Usually, most curbside recycling programs accept plastics #1 and #2; around 30 percent end up getting recycled. #3 and #7 is extremely difficult to recycle and therefore almost always omitted, and the rest are questionable.

One of the biggest problems is that it puts the burden on individuals and customers to decode the symbols and make the right choices. Furthermore, what makes this recycling process even more confusing is that every region has different regulations on what can be recycled. Even if people do make the right choices, many recycling programs do not have enough buyers, so plastic piles up with nowhere to go. What's even worse, countries like Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Ethiopia are finding themselves flooded with plastic waste from rich, first-world countries that dump all their problems into neighboring developing countries. The problem is clear. People are bad at recycling, and the ecosystem isn't absorbing it well, but the root cause is simply the amount of plastic produced. Recycling programs definitely can’t keep up with the substantial amount of new plastic that comes in, and more than half are designed for single-use. Once they are discarded, they hang around for centuries, breaking into gradually smaller particles, carrying toxic substances into drinking water, rainfall, and human blood. This all started with the desire for higher sales and the responsibility being switched on the people recycling. What can be done is the adoption of the extended producer responsibility law, which is the use of financial incentives to encourage manufacturers to think of Eco-friendly products by making the producers responsible for the entire life-cycle of products that are introduced to the market. Implementing tougher rules and wiser consumer choices will eventually lead to the world and environment we all wish to reside in.

Amina Lake Abdelrahman Amina is a product review writer and editor who worked as an editorial assistant in the Good Housekeeping Institute from 2018 to 2020. “You're Probably Recycling Your Plastics Wrong.” Good Housekeeping, 18 Apr. 2022, https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/g804/recycling-symbols-plastics-460321/.

Tabuchi, Hiroko, and Winston Choi-schagrin. “Trash or Recycling? Why Plastic Keeps Us Guessing.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Apr. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/21/climate/plastics-recycling-trash-environment.html.