NUMBERING OF PLASTIC PACKAGING

NUMBERING OF PLASTIC PACKAGING Out of the seven plastic categories, the first two, namely Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) are the easiest to recycle, and therefore these are the most in demand in the recyclable market. Never mind the five others, because those are the most difficult to recycle if ever, and therefore those would have the least problem in the recyclable market. The problem is, most of the people in the supply chain from the manufacturing side, to the consumer side, to the disposal side to the recycling side are not familiar with the system of numbering plastic packaging. That problem is compounded by the fact that generally speaking, the majority of plastic packaging that goes out into the market do not even contain the numbers as they should. I think that in theory, many responsible consumers would not even want to buy consumer products that are packaged in plastics that are neither numbered as 1 or 2. Of course that would be premised on the assumption that with proper public education, most consumers would make environmentally correct consumer decisions. As it is supposed to be, recycling should start by start by segregating wastes into plastic, metal, glass, paper and organic. Understandably, all the plastics of all numbers will be lumped together in the same bags. Even if that is the case, that should not be a problem because once the bags are brought to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), the plastic wastes are supposed to be segregated further into the seven plastic types. As we all know however, many LGUs do not have operational MRFs, and that is why most of the wastes that are collected by the garbage trucks would go directly to the dumpsites. That is so because many of the LGUs do not have the proper sanitary landfills either. Now we know the reason why the dumpsites are overloaded, and why garbage flows over to our rivers. IKE SENERES/09-01-2024