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All About Plastic

We get a LOT of questions about plastics here at Recycle Smart MA, and we understand why. There’s a lot of confusion about which plastics can go in the recycling and which can’t. There’s also a fair amount of confusion about why some plastics are a yes and others are a no. And finally, there’s the whole question about whether plastics get recycled at all. (Read The Truth About Plastics Recycling for answers).

This month, we’re taking a deep dive into how plastics are sorted at material recovery facilities and how that process determines which plastics can and can’t be recycled. There’s a method to the madness – we promise!

Who/What/How/Why – Decisions About Recyclability

Most of us agree that recycling is good for the planet, but it’s also a science and a business. Despite our fervent wish that everything could be recycled (where’s a genie when you need one!), safety, chemistry, mechanics, and markets must all be taken into consideration. To boil it down, the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) operators use three criteria to determine whether a material is acceptable…[READ MORE]