Why Is New York City Picky About Plastics?

New Yorkers pride themselves on their city’s recycling program. And with good reason — the New York City recycling program is widely considered to be one of the finest and most comprehensive in the nation.

However, even a lot of New Yorkers who think they’ve mastered the system don’t realize one thing: The city only picks up plastic bottles and jugs labeled 1 (PET plastics, such as water and juice bottles) or 2 (HDPE plastics, such as milk containers). All other plastic containers are supposed to be thrown in the trash.

That may seem like a raw deal if you know that San Francisco and a number of other major U.S. cities collect all plastics. And, depending on how you look at it, it is. What most people don’t realize, however, is that almost no municipal recycling program actually recycles plastics labeled 3 through 7, or containers labeled 1 or 2 that are not bottles or jugs (which are manufactured differently and usually have a different melting point). What a lot of programs do is sort the plastics at the facility, recycle the 1 and 2 bottles and jugs, and discard the rest. In other words, either way, everything plastic that is not a 1 or 2 bottle or jug will end up in a landfill.

(Note: there are some ways to recycle other types of plastics, including the Gimme 5 program, which accepts some food containers and Brita water filters, but they are not usually part of municipal recycling programs.)

So, I’m sorry, friends in San Francisco: You’re not really any greener than us New Yorkers! Although your program may encourage greater plastics recycling participation overall, since you don’t have to bother with trying to figure out what type of plastic you’re dealing with, our program here in New York cuts down on the transportation of plastics to the recycling plant as well as labor costs, and is therefore, some people might argue, more efficient.

But even if you disagree about that, I think we can all see eye to eye on one thing: It’s a good idea to recycle our plastics when we can and reduce or reuse when we can’t.