10 important symbols and their meanings
Earth Day is again serving as an annual reminder of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle our way to a better planet.
Regarding the last part of the three familiar mantra R, most people know enough to separate elements of the rest of their trash, but much of our modern recycling routine remains a mystery recycling symbol itself that these numbers on plastic containers actually means, there are many Sá you can learn from your waste before it becomes treasure someone else.
The universal recycling symbol of three bent arrows that form a triangle, with the head of an arrow pointing to the tail of the next was created in 1970 by the University of Southern California student Gary Anderson as part competitively bound to the first Earth Day Each arrow design is one of the stages of the recyclable material collecting recycling process after use, break and reform, and new packaging products in containers.
Originally designed as an inverted triangle, the symbol was then turned to the pyramidal orientation commonly used today.
The American Plastics Industry Corporation began using numbers inside plastic containers with recycling symbols in 1988 as a way to help sort out the resin identification code uses seven numbers to identify the type of synthetic material used to make the container, the higher numbers representing plastics less commonly used.
1 PET PETE PET Usually accompanied by PETE or PET letters, this resin is generally used for soda bottles and other containers for edible and non-edible products when it is not used for the manufacture of containers, you can recognize a Yes polyester other name, it is the substance that insulates your jackets is also one of the most widely accepted forms of plastic in municipal curbside recycling programs, although the amount of usable material available for new products after the breakdown plastic is relatively low.
2 high-density HDPE polyethylene The second resin the most widely used for plastic bottles, HDPE is a rigid, solid material with a high chemical resistance, which made the fire to plastic for food products such as milk and the juice, as well as household cleaning products and garbage bags is also easy to break down in the recycling process and easy to reform, making it one of the most effective consumer plastic recycling programs most curbside have no problems with the acceptance of products made from this plastic.
3 PVC polyvinyl chloride Discovered in the 19th century, PVC is commonly used in building materials today in particular pipes and plumbing materials because of its mechanical and chemical resistance although it's occasionally used for some household products he has a bad habit of releasing highly carcinogenic toxins into the atmosphere when burned, so that recycling is a much less attractive option for the elimination of PVC, and it is generally not accepted by the municipal curbside collection.
4 low density polyethylene LDPE plastic This is increasingly common today, especially for manufacturing squeeze bottles and plastic bags tote made from LDPE are generally very strong, and they re regularly used as sealants because So this quality they weren t included in municipal curbside collection first, plastics made from LDPE are now becoming more widely accepted.
5 polypropylene PP is considered one of the safest plastics produced today, PP is generally used for squeeze bottles, bottle caps and straws Along LDPE, it is also used for Tupperware and other food storage containers that can be reused over time it has a very high melting point, it is one of the best consumer plastic for items that will be exposed to heat as LDPE, it's increasingly common for municipal programs curbside to accept articles made from this plastic.
6 Polystyrene PS More commonly known as Styrofoam, this type of plastic is not only notoriously difficult to recycle, but it is also shown leach dangerous toxins over time in anything packaged in even greater amounts of toxins when it is burned resin generally in disposable serving trays, egg cartons, and cups, and it is rarely accepted by municipal curbside recycling programs because of the danger it poses and the difficulty of recycling Basically this is the worst of the group.
7 Other There are countless other plastic, but very few of them are easily recycled in curbside programs, making this catch-all category for everything that could possibly be broken and reformed, but could be better reused or reformed in a way that doesn t require a chemical process This category includes everything from bulletproof materials to these large water jugs on desktop coolers, and is rarely included in municipal curbside collection.
For those wondering which plastics are safe to reuse in their present form, it is widely accepted that 2 HDPE, LDPE and PE 4 5 can be reused several times for edible products, as they're generally resistant to chemicals, haven peace t been shown debase and don t leach hazardous substances in their content.
What these symbols and Mean recycling codes, recycling symbols, means recycling programs, curbside.