How do I recycle plastic film?

Knowing which plastics are recyclable is really confusing. They can contain one of seven possible recycling numbers, if there’s one at all, and it turns out these numbers don’t necessarily mean the material is recyclable where you live. 

One of the most common, tough-to-recycle plastics is plastic film. It’s quite likely you have some right now, but how can you recycle plastic film? Let’s start with the basics.

What exactly is plastic film? 

Plastic film is thin and stretchy plastic. It’s commonly found in materials like grocery bags, bubble wrap, ZiplocⓇ bags, dry cleaning bags, and plastic shipping envelopes from online retailers. Other common uses of plastic film include bread bags, newspaper bags, and the bags in grocery store produce sections.

Plastic film excludes anything metallic, latex, vinyl, or insulated, or any plastic mixed with paper.

What’s the difference between plastic film and multi-layer plastic? 

Another important distinction that will help you decide what to do with your plastic is to make sure it’s plastic film and not multi-layer plastic. Multi-layer plastic is most commonly found in food packaging, often in bags containing dried fruit, nuts, and rice. 

A good test is what we call the “the thumb and listen” test. If the plastic is thin, stretchy, quiet, and easily stretchable with your thumb, it’s typically plastic film. If the plastic is thick, crinkly, loud, and won’t allow your thumb to press through it, it’s often multi-layer plastic. 

What about polypropylene bags?

Polypropylene (#5) is a very common household plastic that is technically loud, crinkly, and not stretchy, but technically not multi-layer plastic. This material commonly shows up as the clear wrap for cut flowers, clear birthday card sleeves, and pre-washed salad mix bags. It's crinkly, loud, clear, and NOT stretchy.  Polypropylene bags are not plastic film.

Why is plastic film hard to recycle? 

Plastic film is difficult to recycle curbside for a couple of reasons. First, since it’s thin and stretchy, plastic film can tangle up the sorting machinery in recycling facilities. This means it’s something many curbside recycling services hesitate to let enter their facilities in the first place. Secondly, there is not much demand for recycled plastic film, so it’s often not considered worth the time and effort to recycle at scale. In 2018, just 11% of plastic film in the US was recycled. 

What can you do with plastic film? 

Since plastic film is often not easily recyclable through curbside systems, typically it must be dropped off at a speciality recycler. In some areas, these drop-off sites are in front or inside the entrance of supermarkets or big box retailers. Unfortunately the number of these sites fell during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, there are some concerns that these bins are contaminated with other materials, reducing the likelihood the plastic film will be recycled. Lastly, needing to drive to drop-off bins makes plastic film recycling inaccessible for many people. Overall, experts agree that more needs to be done to make plastic film recycling accessible to everyone. 

How can Ridwell help recycle plastic film? 

Ridwell makes it easier to recycle plastic film. Instead of your needing to drive across town to drop it off, we pick it up right at your doorstep. We then get it to our recycling partner, Trex, which turns it into high-performance composite decking for homes. Unlike some grocery store drop offs, we are proudly transparent about where all of our materials, including plastic film, go and what they become. With Ridwell you can rest easy knowing that your hard-to-recycle plastic is actually getting recycled. Our approach is paying off, as Ridwell recovered more than one million pounds of plastic film in 2022 alone. 

Tips!  

• Please make sure your plastic film is clean and dry before putting it in your Ridwell bin.

• Unfortunately Ridwell does not accept plastic wrap such as Saran Wrap or Cling Wrap due to the high amount of food contamination for this material.

• Ridwell accepts polypropylene bags within our multi-layer plastic pickups.

If you’d like to recycle more plastic film, clothing, lightbulbs, and lots of other hard-to-recycle stuff, sign up for Ridwell today.