What is a “small mouth or screw top” #1 – #7 plastic bottles and jars?
Beginning January 2008, Baltimore City expanded plastic recycling beyond just the plastic bottles coded #1 and #2 (typically your water, juice and soda bottles) to all plastic types of small neck bottles with a screw top stamped #1 through #7 on the bottle of the container. Unfortunately, the saying “things aren’t as they appear” applies to plastics and their #1 through #7 recycling codes. “Other” plastic containers (such as, yogurt, butter, plastic egg carton, plastic strawberry baskets, plastic to-go food containers, toys and beverage cups to name a few) may be labeled # 1 to #7, yet they are made of a different chemical compound and aren’t compatible with the standard plastic recycling. Good news though. Waste Management, our single-stream processor, is conducting a pilot test to figure out how to recycle many ore plastics.
