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For recyclers of plastics, it's a numbers game

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 4, 2008 at 12:43 p.m.

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Waste Management has expanded its acceptance of plastics for recycling to include containers marked with #3-7.

Photo by Darin McGregor © The Rocky

Waste Management has expanded its acceptance of plastics for recycling to include containers marked with #3-7.

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Line from The Graduate holds true: "There's a great future in plastics."

Stop! Don't throw away that plastic cup! Or that margarine tub! Or the yogurt container!

These plastic items, once considered largely impossible to recycle, are no longer just garbage. Opportunities to recycle them in Colorado are on the rise as soaring petroleum costs are boosting overseas demand for the former throwaways.

Recycle America, a subsidiary of Waste Management and the region's largest recycler, is beginning to accept plastics No. 3 through No. 7.

Previously, the company had sought only the more readily recyclable No. 1 and 2 plastics, such as soda bottles and milk jugs.

Plastic recycling always has lagged behind recycling newspapers and cans.

The variety of resins in plastics and the myriad processes needed to make them into new products has made for a formidable barrier.

Plastic containers are marked with a number from 1 through 7, usually on the bottom. When a rogue container is tossed into a recycle bin, someone at a sorting facility has to pull it out.

"Plastics have always been our problem child," said Charlotte Pitt, manager of Denver Recycles, "because people truly don't understand them; it's a very confusing material."

Plastics are derived from costly oil and natural gas - some figures say 8 percent of the world's petroleum goes into plastics manufacturing.

So there's growing demand for used plastics that can be refashioned into other products.

China, for example, is increasingly converting Nos. 3 through 7 plastics into toys and lawn furniture.

Even so, Denver Recycles is taking a wait-and-see approach on the new trend.

Pitt said the city wants to ensure that the market demand for the materials holds steady before it conditions its customers to add the jumble of additional plastic to the big purple bins.

"Once we say yes to a material," she said, "we can't get it back out."

And Recycle America, too, is stepping carefully.

It has begun accepting the materials from Fort Collins, and some private haulers, but wants to ramp up slowly as it adjusts its systems to the inflow of the once-forbidden plastics.

"This is fairly new for everybody," said Charles Bayley of Waste Management.

Bayley said the company got a nudge from officials with the Democratic National Convention, who hope to recycle much of the event's waste Aug. 25 through 28 in downtown Denver.

But Recycle America already had been eyeing overseas markets for a while, he said, and now believes that they are stable enough to start collecting and selling the materials, albeit slowly.

"The market is edgy enough. We're not going to push Denver right now until this thing gets a little bit more developed," he said. "We're comfortable enough to try it, but let's don't jump in all the way."

But Bayley said the company does recycle Nos. 3 through 7 plastics that turn up in the Recycle America collection bins around the metro area.

Waste Management's Recycle America isn't alone. Another big metro-area recycler, Alpine Recycling, began accepting Nos. 3 through 7 plastics in March from individual refuse haulers that provide recycling.

"We welcome it from anybody," said Steve Caulk, a spokesman for Alpine. He said the company is getting enough from customers "to make it worth our while" to ship it to overseas markets.

And other companies, including Iowa-based MidAmerica Recycling and Eco-Cycle in Boulder, have accepted some of the materials over the past few years in pockets of the state, said Marjorie Griek of the Colorado Association for Recycling.

"It's a great thing for Colorado," Griek said. "It's exciting that we're finding new markets where more materials can go, which means we're going to be able to . . . turn more of these discarded materials into resources."

What's acceptable and what's not

Waste Management subsidiary Recycle America and other refuse companies are accepting more plastics for recycling in Colorado.

Previously, only plastics numbered 1 and 2 were acceptable. But markets have emerged for plastics numbered 3 through 7 as well.

* What's accepted: Here are examples of the types of plastic containers associated with each number imprinted on the containers:

* No. 1: Soda and water bottles

* No. 2: Milk jugs and detergent bottles

* No. 3: Cooking oil bottles, window cleaner bottles

* No. 4: Squeezable bottles, such as for honey

* No. 5: Yogurt containers, butter tubs, clear plastic "clamshells"

* No. 6: Some plastic cups, disposable plates, CD cases

* No. 7: Rigid plastic, such as Nalgene water bottles

* Unwanted: Waste Management says some plastics, even if numbered 1-7, are unacceptable because food particles or other materials can contaminate them. They include: frozen-entree microwave trays, food trays, film canisters, plastic bags, automotive chemical containers such as motor oil and antifreeze, pesticide containers.

Comments

  • July 5, 2008

    10:40 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jcn7vc writes:

    I don't get it. How come if recycled materials are in such high demand, we still have to pay to recycle them? How come the government has to subsidize recycling? If it was worth while, we would get paid for recycling, such as with aluminum and glass. Until then, it is just wasted energy, literally.

  • July 5, 2008

    12:02 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    otterjill writes:

    So since all these recycled materials are so desirable now, why are the large recycling bins in parking lots being removed? The "newspapers only" bins are plentiful, but it's getting harder and harder to find a place to put any other recycling items.