How to make smarter choices about plastic

Think back to the last few purchases you made: How much plastic was involved?

Did you unload an order from a big-box store and end up with a blue bin filled with packaging? Did you bring a canvas tote to the grocery store and come back laden with peanut butter (plastic tub), romaine lettuce (plastic bag), and chicken thighs (plastic film)? Did you tap your credit card at checkout?

Whether it’s the polyester thread in our clothing, the casing around our cell phones, or the bubble wrap protecting our purchases, plastic plays a pervasive role in our consumption habits. The material’s versatility, durability, and low cost have led it to spread to virtually every part of our lives, but these same qualities have also encouraged a culture of disposability that sends 27 million tons of plastic to landfills every year in the U.S.

If you’re looking to forge more sustainable habits in this area, you aren’t alone: more than 70 percent of Americans say they are trying to cut down on their single-use plastic consumption for environmental reasons, according to the Pew Research Center.

Despite the material’s prevalence, shifting to more conscious consumption patterns doesn’t mean you have to make major changes to your daily life. You can, however, take stock of your current habits and find opportunities for improvement, from taking a plastic product’s reusability into account before adding it to your cart, to getting educated on the (admittedly complicated) numerical recycling code system so everything ends up in the right place.

As consumers, we don’t often get a say in how products are packaged, shipped, and sold, but there are decisions we can make that do have an impact. The first — and simplest — step toward building a better relationship with plastic is to be more intentional about your purchases and only buy products you know you will use (and ideally reuse).

Once you’re confident an item won’t be forgotten about in the back of a cupboard or the bottom of your bag, consider the full lifecycle of the materials and ask yourself a few questions before purchasing: If it’s a bottle, is it made from recycled plastic? Can it be easily refilled once it runs out? Is the packaging recyclable, and is there a reasonable amount of it?

While “reasonable” may be a subjective measure, packaging is an important factor: it’s responsible for about 42 percent of all plastic ever produced, and most of it is discarded the same year it’s made. Instead, seek out products that have been designed with plastic reduction in mind, like cleaning products that use refill pods that dissolve in reusable spray bottles. For example, Dissolve Concentrated Pods for Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, and Fantastik use 94 percent less plastic than a 23 fluid ounce or larger same-branded sprayer bottle, according to SC Johnson.

Some of these design choices may be hardly noticeable at first glance — just a product offered in a smaller packaging size or a bottle engineered with thinner walls to minimize waste. One brewer introduced a new six-pack design that used recyclable glue to hold cans together, eliminating the need for plastic six-pack rings. Such design tweaks can add up a big impact: For example, since committing to reducing unnecessary plastic packaging such as glued labels and multi-layer films, SC Johnson has eliminated 7,864 metric tons of plastic from its portfolio since 2018.

Opting for durable, thoughtfully designed products is also a smart way to take advantage of plastic’s practical qualities and keep the items you already own in use. Plastics, after all, are strong, lightweight, and long-lasting — which, while bad news in a landfill or in the ocean, is a necessary feature for items you keep in heavy rotation in your home.

If a product can’t be reused, recycling is your next best option.

By now, you may be aware that recycling isn’t the panacea many of us were raised to believe it would be. It’s an expensive, complicated process that currently only addresses certain kinds of plastic waste — and it’s made all the more expensive and complicated when blue bins are contaminated with food scraps and non-recyclable products like plastic bags.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, less than 10 percent of the 7 billion tons of plastic waste ever generated worldwide has been recycled, with the remaining share ending up in landfills, incinerators, or waterways. Beyond upgrading the existing recycling infrastructure, there is significant room for improvement in the U.S. Curbside recycling only captures about 32 percent of available recyclables in single-family homes, per The Recycling Partnership, which points to the need for better access and funding support for local programs.

On an individual level, you can help recycling systems function by understanding which types of plastic should go in the blue bin and which should go in the trash, and cleaning, preparing, and sorting items accordingly.

One place to start is the numbers stamped inside the “chasing arrows” logo on many plastic products. Despite the logo’s widespread usage as a recycling symbol, all of these products aren’t necessarily recyclable, though California has cracked down on manufacturers who use it on products that are destined for landfills.

The numbers listed below correspond to the numbers found on the bottom of plastic containers, which indicate the type of plastic the product is made from:

As a general rule, only numbers one and two are widely accepted by curbside recycling programs in the U.S., though five is gaining traction in certain markets. Beyond sorting, it’s equally important to make sure your accepted plastics are properly cleaned and prepared before recycling. Peanut butter jars, for example, don’t need to be spotless, but should be scraped, soaked to remove excess peanut butter, and dried before being tossed in the bin. For plastic caps and lids, you’ll need to check with your local recycling program about whether they’re accepted and should be recycled together with the container or separately, but many programs are moving to a caps-on model.

Plastic bags, on the other hand, jam up sorting machines and cause problems for material recovery facilities, the first destination for recycled plastics. Polystyrene foam, meanwhile, is 98 percent air and generally too bulky to efficiently transport or process. Black plastic — even PET or HDPE — is often not detected by optical sorting systems, resulting in much of it ending up in landfills. Beyond the technological challenges of recovering certain materials, there also needs to be a market for the post-consumer scrap to complete the closed-loop process; so far, that isn’t the case for many types of plastics.

Because recycling systems are so localized, though, the best way to know what should go in your blue bin and in street-side recycling cans is to do a quick search for your municipality’s rules. Your local waste management authority or recycling center should publish and regularly update information online about which plastics can be recycled in your area and whether they require any particular prep work, such as removing bottle caps or labels.

Similar methods can help you find the locations and acceptance criteria for nearby specialty recycling facilities, which may take items like plastic film, empty cosmetics containers, and textiles, and even offer mail-in or home pickup services. For clean plastic bags (like Ziploc), pouches, wrap, and film, check BagandFilmRecycling.org’s directory to find a store drop-off near you; retailers like grocery stores often have a marked recycling box near the front of the store.

Armed with this knowledge, you can avoid the frustration of realizing too late that something you’ve bought has to be thrown in the trash. Instead, use you new knowledge of plastic label numbers to look for products that are designed to be easily recyclable when that time eventually comes.

For example, when shopping for cleaning product refills, look for those packaged in rigid plastics (like method dish soap’s are), which are widely accepted by recycling programs, versus flexible pouch refills, which aren’t. Also avoid purchasing any items that use carbon black plastic, which isn’t recyclable at all. Look for neutral-colored plastics instead, like those found in Mrs. Meyer’s products, which were redesigned in some regions to keep carbon black plastic out of the waste stream. (The brand is working to eliminate the use of carbon black plastic in its products entirely by 2025.)

As consumers demand more sustainable options, companies have greater incentives to invest in the research and development needed to create these solutions — and ultimately, when the planet wins, so do we.

To learn more, visit www.scjohnson.com/actionmatters