I'm confused about what the numbers on the bottoms of many plastic products mean. Can I recycle all of them?
Love,
Alex
Okay, I'm going to answer my own question. According to the American Chemistry Council website, the little numbers indicate the type of plastic used. They're called resin identification codes. Here is a pretty picture!
PETE stands for Polyethylene Terephthalate...aka polyester. Lots and lots of beverage bottles are made of this. HDPE stands for High Density Polyethylene. More beverage bottles, among other things, are made of this. These two types of plastic are marked 1 and 2, respectively, and this is the type we can recycle here at Wes. So if you have a piece of plastic marked 1 or 2, definitely recycle that. If it has another number, be very sad as you throw it away (or better, reuse the container).
For more information (like what the other numbers stand for), go here.
