Philly Expands Recycling of Plastic Containers

Philadelphia, joining a national trend, has quietly expanded its curbside plastics pickup.

The city used to accept only containers with the numerals 1 or 2 in the recycling logo on the bottom, which is mainly soda, milk and
detergent bottles. But now it is taking containers with numbers 3 through 7 as well, which means items such as yogurt containers,
takeout trays, and margarine tubs.

“There's a lot of joy out there in recycling-advocates land,” said Maurice Sampson II, a longtime advocate in the city.

Philadelphia's recycling rate, as measured by weight rather than percentage of households participating, was formerly nothing to
brag about among large cities, with households recycling only about 5.5 percent of their waste in 2006.

But that rate has risen to 16 percent as the city has increased the number of materials accepted, moved to weekly collections and
allowed all items in one bin.

Recyclebank, hired last year, operates a program that gives residents coupons and other rewards. The city has also rebid its contract to get more favorable rates and now saves $68 a ton in landfill costs and recoups $51.37 a ton for recyclables from Houston-based Waste Management Inc., officials said.

To handle the new material, Waste Management is building a $20 million facility on the 42-acre site of its transfer station.

Keith Christman, senior director of packaging for the American Chemistry Council's plastics division, said adding numbers 3 through 7 is a growing trend. A Washington spokeswoman says the city started recycling all plastics in 2008, and the New York City Council passed a bill last month to do the same when a new facility opens up at the end of next year.

The higher-numbered plastics were always recyclable, but sorting was expensive and the commodity market was low, Christman said. With prices rising, more communities are recycling more plastics, which leads to an expanded market.

Some environmentalists, however, are not completely sold on increased recycling of plastics, fearing that it will make consumers complacent about all the packaging they buy. They would prefer that people reduce first, reuse next and recycle only as a last resort.

Another factor is that many of the higher-number plastics are sent to China for further sorting and reuse, raising concerns about the environmental costs of transport as well as labor and environmental conditions in that country.