Chasing Arrows Don’t Actually Mean It’s Recyclable!

Jaceybonavia/ Plastic, Zero Waste

A student at the University of California — Gary Anderson — developed the chasing arrows (♺) to symbolize and raise awareness about recycling in 1970. We now see it on recycling bins, educational materials about recycling, and recycling campaigns. As a society, we understand that logo to be the recycling symbol. When we see the “recycling symbol” on plastic packaging, many (quite reasonably) believe that the symbol indicates that the packaging material is recyclable.

The presence of the recycling symbol on plastic does NOT indicate that the material is recyclable. 

What does the chasing arrows symbol mean?

In 1988, the Society of the Plastics Industry developed the ASTM International Resin Identification Coding System (RIC) to identify the plastic resins from which manufacturers make items. They intended for workers at recycling facilities to use the code to help with sorting different types of plastics. When creating the RIC, the Society of the Plastics Industry adopted Anderson’s symbol and put numbers in it to indicate the different types of resins, including those that aren’t typically recyclable.

♳: PETE or PET

Plastic number one is polyethylene terephthalate. Plastic one is the type of plastic used for soda and water bottles and nut butter jars. It is recyclable at most recycling facilities that have a curbside recycling program.

♴: HDPE or PE-HD

Plastic number two is high-density polyethylene. Plastic two is the type of plastic used for milk jugs and bottles of cleaning agents, such as detergent and shampoo. It is recyclable at most recycling facilities with curbside recycling programs. Check with your local recycling company, though, as some have restrictions.

♵: PVC or V

Plastic number three is polyvinyl chloride. This type of plastic is often used for flooring, garden hoses, and plumbing parts and tubing. Curbside recycling programs do not accept this type of plastic.

♶: LDPE or PE-LD

Plastic number four is low-density polyethylene. Plastic four is the type of plastic used to make shopping bags, produce bags, dry cleaner garment bags, bread bags, newspaper bags, and other films and wraps. Most curbside programs do not accept this type of plastic. However, many stores (especially large grocery stores and large box stores) do collect used bags to be recycled.

♷: PP

Plastic number five is polypropylene. Plastic five is used for food containers (such as yogurt and sour cream containers), among other things. Check with your local recycling program to see if they can accept plastic number five. My local program can recycle many (not all) polypropylene objects.

♸: PS

Plastic number six is polystyrene. Plastic six is the type of plastic used in Styrofoam, plastic cutlery, clamshell containers, to-go cups, and packing peanuts. Check with your local recycling program to see if they can accept plastic number six. My local program cannot recycle any polystyrene products.

♹: Other or O

Plastic number seven is all other plastics and multilayer combinations of plastics. Most recycling programs cannot recover plastic number seven. Check with your local recycling program.

♹: PLA

Plastic number seven items with the PLA code are bio-based plastics, which are compostable but not recyclable.

Always check with your local recycling program to learn their rules and guidelines about the types (and even shapes) of objects that they can recycle. 

In other posts, we will discuss the problems with recycling and the potential health implications of plastic.

What do you want to learn about plastic? Do you have any questions about recycling?