What Should I Do With All These Plastic Bags?
I do my best not to use plastic bags – I once bought a few frozen foods and decided to carry them home in my arms as if they were a baby.
But from time to time, forgetting about my comfy bag, I find myself carrying too many things and have to resort to a horrible wrinkled plastic bag.
Aside from disposable straws, plastic bags have become a new nightmare for recycling businesses. For context, most of the bags you will carry with you are made of # 2 high density polyethylene or # 4 low density polyethylene; These types of plastics are commonly accepted by most roadside recycling programs, however plastic bags are a completely separate issue for businesses.
When thrown into the wastebasket, plastic bags end up at these facilities and often end up in sorting equipment. When stumped, workers must stop equipment and manually remove the bag, which poses vastly different safety and efficiency issues for workers. Because of this, more often than not, your curbside program will not accept them at all (although you can always check the Earth911 locator to be sure, or search online for your program rules).
And what’s wrong with plastic bags going to landfills? Well, in addition to sitting there for several years to decompose (some sources indicate between ten and a thousand years, but this is not confirmed ), they also end up in our waterways. They are inevitably dangerous to aquatic organisms if they are entangled or eaten.
What if you’ve assembled your personal arsenal of plastic bags?
First, you must use the plastic wrap return directory to locate the collection container closest to you; Some of the options provided may not necessarily recycle your plastic bag, but simply allow customers to reuse them, which is just as sustainable.
At a number of Whole Foods stores, you will find baskets for collecting used plastic bags. All Target stores also have red bins for collecting plastic bags (according to a tweet on the store’s Twitter account , they recycled about 22.6 million pounds of plastic in just under a year and a half, from January 2016 to May 2017).
Additionally, a number of CVS, Rite Aid, and Duane Reade stores also have trash cans, although this may vary depending on the state you live in. In New York City , stores such as Duane Reade are required by law to have trash cans. California also requires certain supermarket chains and large retail outlets with pharmacies, so you can count on major West Coast chains like Albertsons .
If you’re still unsure or looking to avoid unnecessary travel, call any of these stores ahead of time to make sure they’ll accept your plastic waste.
And perhaps the simplest rule of thumb to help your local businesses: never throw recyclables in a plastic bag or trash can (assuming your software doesn’t accept bags, of course). You’re only making it harder for your own curbside program, so if you don’t want to look for the trash can, throwing it in the trash can is often the next and only solution.