Erha Andini Says Plastic Bag Recycling Can Clog Equipment
Plastic bag recycling belongs in designated store drop-off bins, not household recycling bins, because grocery bags and other soft plastics can clog equipment. Erha Andini, a Delaware-based chemical engineering expert and science communicator, said they can jam the system after shredding or even before it. The better option is to take accepted films to grocery or convenience store bins.
Erha Andini on plastic bags
Andini said, "Once they get shredded or even before, a lot of times they just clog recycling equipment," when grocery bags are put in curbside recycling. That is the central problem with mixing plastic bags in with cardboard and cans: the material behaves differently from rigid containers and can interfere with sorting.
Plastic bags and soft, stretchy plastics can take the form of grocery bags, bubble wrap, bread bags, plastic cereal bags, and overwrap for bulk items such as toilet paper. The three-arrow logo with a number inside identifies the plastic type, not whether the item belongs in a curbside bin. Many films carry the numbers two or four, and those materials are made of either high-density or low-density polyethylene.
Store bins and Trex
Films labeled two or four can be dropped off at some designated grocery or convenience store bins, where recyclers reprocess them into materials for new products such as furniture. Trex uses recycled plastic films to make outdoor decking, and the company has a locator on its website to find drop-off points by zip code. Grocery bags and soft plastics labeled two and four are generally accepted at these bins, as long as they are not covered in food residue or too degraded.
That route matters because plastic bags can take hundreds of years to degrade in landfills, and they can release harmful microplastics into the environment. More than 3 million tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps in the United States went to landfills in 2018, according to the facts provided here.
Gary Dusek on volume
Gary Dusek, founder of Precious Plastic NYC, summed up the larger disposal problem in one line: "It's a problem of volume," he said. The issue is not limited to one bag or one household mistake; it is the scale of plastic film use and the number of items that end up where recycling systems cannot handle them.
For readers, the practical step is simple: keep plastic bags and most soft films out of household recycling bins and use store drop-off programs when the labels and condition fit those programs. If the item is a soft plastic film marked two or four and it is clean enough to be accepted, the store bin is the right place; if not, it does not belong with curbside cardboard and cans.
