Can I Recycle Plastic Bags?
Anne Arundel Countians are lucky to have their recycling picked up at the curb. With the county’s single-stream recycling program, you don’t even have to sort. Even so, 26 percent of what goes into the trash is recyclable, according to Anne Arundel County Recycling.
Getting that quarter of our waste out of the trash stream depends not only on the will to recycle but also our knowledge.
You can find a list that outlines most of what is and is not accepted for curbside recycling on the website www.recyclemoreoften.com.
How about plastic bags?
Reading the website left me confused, so I asked direction from Rich Bowen, Recycling Program Manager for Anne Arundel County.
Most plastic bags that stretch when pulled are recyclable. This includes grocery bags, bread bags, retail bags (even the thicker plastic retail bags) and newspaper bags. Also in this category are zip-top or roll-top food bags and cellophane plastic wrap.
Not recyclable in Anne Arundel’s program are shiny metallic bags like chip bags.
Gather recyclable bags together, please, Bowen asks.
“For curbside pickup, we ask that residents bundle these bags together and tightly tie the bundle so that they don’t come apart during collection or sorting,” he told me.
Still, curbside recycling is not the best solution for plastic bags.
“The best thing to do with them,” Bowen advises, “is take them to the grocery store with you and deposit them in the collection bin at the front of the store.”
The reason is what happens to the bags after you put them out for recycling.
“The biggest buyer for bags right now is the company that makes Trex decking,” Bowen said. “The composite lumber material uses the plastic bags to make its product. They want clean bags and feel that when the bags are collected with other materials they get soiled by other recyclables so they can’t use them,” Bowen said.
Also, if the bags come loose during sorting, they can get lodged in the gears of the mechanism that separates paper, metal, glass and plastics. Escaped bags gum up the works, causing the machine to slow down. This results in a slower processing time, which makes costs for recycling all single stream materials increase.
Many — but not all — grocery stores have obviously located plastic bag collection bins.
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