WE RECYCLE:

• Polyethylene terephthalate or PETE #1. Examples are clear beverage containers and plastic liquor bottles. On the bottom of the container should be the number "1" inside a triangle.
• High-density polyethylene or HDPE #2. Examples are clear beverage containers, milk, water, and juice jugs; laundry and soap detergent bottles. On the bottom of the container should be the number "2" inside a triangle.
• In general, plastic liquid containers with a neck; the base needs to be larger than the opening

WE DO NOT RECYCLE:

• plastic straws
• plastic forks, knives, and spoons
• plastic covers or transparencies
• any plastic container whose base is smaller than the top
• plastic bags [please collect & recycle at area grocery stores!]
• oil containers
• any plastic that does not have #1 or #2 imprinted somewhere on the plastic
• packaging material, e.g. rigid polystyrene, plastic shrink wrap, sponges, bubble pak

  Note: packing peanuts and other packaging can be reused. If you cannot personally re-use them, take them to one of the following  locations near UST:
      -Mail Boxes, Inc. 1043 Grand Ave
      -UPS Store 2136 Ford Parkway
      -UPS Store 1360 University Ave near Midway Center
  You may also call the Peanut Hotline for the nearest location accepting loose-fill foam packaging at 1-800-828-2214.  For larger quantities of expanded polystyrene foam packaging, please check recycling locations at the Plastic Loose Fill Council

HOW & WHERE TO RECYCLE:

• Empty all liquids, remove all caps & rings.
• Recyclable plastic should be placed in recycling containers marked "Plastic" or "Glass." If a plastic recycling container is not available, please put the plastic in with glass recycling.
• Plastic is hand sorted by type and any plastic bottle not imprinted with #1 or #2 is landfilled or incinerated.
• In August of 2001, UST began co-mingling its plastic and glass recycling and giving the processing of the two commodities to Eureka Recycling.

FACTS ABOUT PLASTIC:

• Plastic is cheap to manufacture and appears to last forever. But lasting forever is proving to be a major environmental problem.  Almost all plastics manufactured are de-gradable BUT not biodegradable.  This is because their long polymer molecules are too large and too tightly bonded together to be broken apart and assimilated by natural organisms.  So most of the plastic we consume never goes away; it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.   -Nova, Australian Academy of Science

• Americans use approximately 7,000 plastic bottles every second. In Minnesota, the use of plastic beverage bottles is increasing dramatically.
• "Some 100 billion pounds of plastic are used in the U.S. annually, yet only 2% to 4% of complex plastics are recycled, compared with 95% for steel and aluminum.  That's because it's difficult to identify and sort engineered plastic by type and grade." from "E-Waste Meets Its Re-Maker," Time Magazine, 12 Dec 05
• Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.  -Marks & Howden, "The World's Dump," Independent UK, 6 Feb 08

• According to the 2006 EPA report on municipal Solid Waste, the U.S. recycling rate for plastic HDPE milk and water bottles was 31% and 30.9% for plastic soft drink bottles. 

• The U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually consuming over 12 million barrels of oil and costing retailers an estimated $4 billion. "Plastic Bags Are Killing Us," Salon.com 10 Aug 07

• There is a corn-based plastic polymer, polylactic acid [PLA] that has been touted as the plastic of the future.  But, even though PLA is corn-based, it has yet to prove itself as a satisfactory answer to oil-based plastic:  "Despite PLA’s potential as an environmentally friendly material, it seems clear that a great deal of corn packaging, probably the majority of it, will end up in landfills. And there’s no evidence it will break down there any faster or more thoroughly than PET or any other form of plastic. Glenn Johnston, manager of global regulatory affairs for NatureWorks, says that a PLA container dumped in a landfill will last 'as long as a PET bottle.' No one knows for sure how long that is, but estimates range from 100 to 1,000 years." -Elizabeth Royte, "Corn Plastic to the Rescue," Smithsonian, Aug 06

• "Plastic bags have only been around for about 50 years, so there's no firsthand evidence of their decomposition rate. To make long-term estimates of this sort, scientists often use respirometry tests. The experimenters place a solid waste sample—like a newspaper, banana peel, or plastic bag—in a vessel containing microbe-rich compost, then aerate the mixture. Over the course of several days, microorganisms assimilate the sample bit by bit and produce carbon dioxide; the resultant CO2 level serves as an indicator of degradation.  Respirometry tests work perfectly for newspapers and banana peels. (Newspapers take two to five months to biodegrade in a compost heap; banana peels take several days.) But when scientists test generic plastic bags, nothing happens—there's no CO2 production and no decomposition. Why? The most common type of plastic shopping bag—the kind you get at supermarkets—is made of polyethylene, a man-made polymer that microorganisms don't recognize as food."  -Juliet Lapidos, “Will My Plastic Bag Still Be Here in 2507?” Slate, 27 Jun 07

• “…there is the moral consideration of diverting crops to something other than food. Notes Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute: ‘Already we’re converting 12 percent of the U.S. grain harvest to ethanol. How much corn do we want to convert to nonfood products?’ The USDA estimates that percentage could double by 2014, which raises the question of whether corn in particular can remain economically viable, if demand forces up prices. Add the vagaries of nature—drought, for example—and the economics could be altered significantly.”  -Shahana Jahangir & Mary Jo Leber, Biodegradable Food Packaging: An Environmental Imperative, 26 Jun 07

• Excessive withdrawal of natural mineral or spring water to produce bottled water has threatened local streams and groundwater, and the product consumes significant amounts of energy in production and shipping. Millions of tons of oil-derived plastics, mostly polyethylene terephthalate (PET), are used to make the water bottles, most of which are not recycled. Each year, about 2 million tons of PET bottles end up in landfills in the United States ; in 2005, the national recycling rate for PET was only 23.1 percent, far below the 39.7 percent rate achieved a decade earlier. -Worldwatch Institute 7 May 07

• Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic  - Kathy Marks, “The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan,” The Independent, 5 Feb 08
• According to the Container Recycling Institute Plastic bottle recycling has not kept pace with the dramatic increases in virgin resin PET sales, particularly for PET bottles. Most of  the increase in virgin resin sales has been for single-serve PET soda bottles (under 24 oz) that now make up 50 percent of soda bottle market share. These bottles are consumed away from home and away from curbside recycling bins and are difficult to recover. Less than one in four PET soda bottles is recycled.  As a result of the tremendous growth in sales of single-serve soda bottles, the volume of PET soda bottles landfilled doubled from 1990 to 1999.
• China in 2008 banned production of ultra-thin bags and forbid supermarkets and shops from handing our free bags beginning 1 Jun 08.  According to a posting on China's central government web site: "Our country consumes huge amounts of plastic bags every year. While providing convenience to consumers, they have also caused serious pollution, and waste of energy and resources, because of excessive use and inadequate recycling."  Chinese people use up to 3 billion plastic bags a day and China consumes 5 million tons (37 million barrels) of crude oil every year to make plastics used for packaging, according to China Trade News. from Reuters Alertnet, 8 Jan 08
• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2003, 26.7 million tons of plastic was generated in the United States.  In the same year, only 1.39 million tons of plastic was recovered through recycling giving a recovery rate of only 5.2%.
• Lids for most plastic containers with necks tend to be polypropylene, plastic #5, which is why you should remove the caps before recycling the bottle.  Polypropylene is not accepted in most community recycling programs.
• By weight, over 9% of Minnesota garbage is plastic.
• Plastic recycling faces a huge problem: plastic types must not be mixed. It is impossible to tell one type from another by sight or touch. Even a small amount of the wrong type of plastic can ruin the melt. The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) introduced its resin coding system in 1988 at the urging of recyclers around the country. The overwhelming majority of plastic packaging is made with one of six resins:
  • polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
  • high density polyethylene (HDPE)
  • polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl)
  • low density polyethylene (LDPE)
  • polypropylene (PP)
  • polystyrene (PS)

  The SPI resin identification code assigns each of these resins a number from one to six. The number seven is assigned to other resins or plastic made of a combination of resins. These numbers are featured inside a triangle of chasing arrows, with the resin abbreviation printed underneath.

  

• As of January 1995, 39 states including Minnesota had adopted legislation regarding the use of the resin identification codes on bottles of 16 ounces or more and rigid containers of 8 ounces. The SPI code described above is the one being used.
• When glass, paper and cans are recycled, they become similar products which can be used and recycled over and over again. With plastics recycling, however, there is usually only a single re-use. Most bottles and jugs don't
  become food and beverage containers again. For example, pop bottles might become carpet or stuffing for sleeping bags. Milk jugs are often made into plastic lumber, recycling bins, and toys. -information from the Boulder Community Network Environment Center
• In 1990, the U.S. plastic industry set a five year goal of 25% recovery rate for plastic containers. The goal has yet to be reached. According to the American Plastics Council, capacity to process material, and the market demand for the recovered plastic resin, both currently exceed the amount of post-consumer bottles that are now recovered from the waste stream. In 1999, over 750,000 tons of plastic bottles were recycled. Each year the amount of plastic bottles recycled increases by millions of pounds while the recycling rate has stabilized around 23%. Volume increases while the rate remains static due to a result of the continuing rapid increases in the number of plastic bottles used to package an ever-increasing variety of products.
• According to the Container Recycling Institute, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study estimates that soft drink and beer containers are recycled at an average rate of 78 percent in states where they have a deposit value,
  and only 26 percent in the other 40 states.
• Coca-Cola promised in 1990 to make new plastic soft drink bottles sold in the U.S. with 25% recycled material.  But in 1994, the company discontinued its involvement with plastic recycling and now uses no bottles that are made with recycled plastic. Coca-Cola sells more than 20 million sodas in plastic bottles every day in the U.S. A coalition of more than 20 U.S. recycling groups initiated a campaign asking consumers to mail back empty plastic bottles to Coca-Cola company chairman, M. Douglas Ivester, with the message: "Coca-Cola live up to your promise: take it back and use it again."  In response to environmental groups and interested public, Coca-Cola has begun using 10% recycled content PET in new bottles.  Coke bottles recycled at the Salt Lake City Olympics will be made into new bottles!
• In the past, #6 polystyrene plastic and other plastics have been recycled at UST, but due to a depressed plastic market, area processors will only accept #1 or #2 plastic unless we have a very large volume of #6 plastic recycling. We cannot meet the threshold volumes at UST because of storage limitations. We have investigated possible cooperation with other MIAC schools, but no satisfactory arrangement has been developed. When new local markets are found for other types of plastic, this recycling page will be updated.
• Polystyrene (#6) food service packaging is one of the most visible areas of public concern about the lack of recycling possibilities. Annual sales of Polystyrene food service packaging exceed 1.5 billion pounds according to the national recycling journal Resource Recycling. According to their numbers, the recovery rate for PS food service packaging is just 2%. The Polystyrene Packaging Council offers different recycling figures but also insight into the economic issues associated with food service polystyrene recycling.
• PETE recycled plastic is used to make more pop, liquor, mouthwash, and cooking oil bottles. In 1995, a record 622 million pounds of PETE bottles were recycled in the U.S. representing a recycling rate of 32%.
• HDPE recycled plastic is used in products such as drain pipe, toys, plastic lumber, and base cups for soda bottles.
• The use of recycled PETE in apparel is a fairly new and growing market. Wellman, Inc. produces Fortrel EcoSpun fiber made from recycled bottles. EcoSpun apparel reduces the burden on the world's landfills and natural resources, and provides a viable end-use for recycled postconsumer PETE containers. Wellman has seen sales jump tenfold, from three million pounds in 1993 to 30 million pounds in 1997. Upscale outer wear garments, such as fleece garments sold by Patagonia, has provided a large part of the demand for EcoSpun.
• The Wall Street Journal reported in an article by Susan Warren on 1/11/00 that Cargill and Dow Chemical are teaming up to make a biodegradable plastic from renewable resources such as corn or wheat instead of from petroleum. The companies say their joint venture, branded NatureWorks, is ready to go into full-scale commercial production, putting the companies at the front of a race among agriculture and chemical firms to find cost-effective ways to make a durable plastic from common plants. The new plastic, dubbed polylactide, is said to be versatile and strong enough to compete with other plastics used for clothing, carpets, food containers, and plastic window envelopes. Cargill and Dow plan to construct a manufacturing plant in Nebraska that will produce 300 million pounds a year of the new plastic, and they say they have lined up enough customers to sell out its first year of production.

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