What do those plastic recycling symbols means?

A typical recycling symbol on plastic looks like a triangle made of arrows. There are seven different types of plastic indicated by the symbols. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn the difference between each of these plastic types.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com
where smart Happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question,
what do the little recycling symbols that you see on
some plastic items mean? And how many different symbols are there?
A typical symbol looks like a small triangle with a
number inside of it. There are seven of these symbols currently,

(00:23):
each one identifying a different type of plastic. Here are
the types. Number one is polyethylene tariff thalite or PET.
Number two is high density polyethylene or HDPE. Number three
is polyvinyl chloride or PVC. Number four is low density
polyethylene or l d p E. Number five is polypropylene

(00:47):
or PP, number six is polystyrene or PS, and number
seven is other resins like a BS. PET is most
commonly seen in plastic soda bottles in my lar film.
High density polyethylene is what milk jugs are made of,
and it's also used in things like plastic gas cans.

(01:07):
PVC is the base for any form of vinyl, from
vinyl siding to vinyl seat covers, as well as many
soft toys. Low density polyethylene is found in things like
plastic food, containers. The difference between high density and low
density is that low density polyethylene is softer, more flexible,
and melts at a lower temperature than high density. Polypropylene

(01:32):
is a lightweight plastic and has a relatively high melting point.
It's used in things like luggage and plastic trim for cars,
as well as some food containers. Polystyrene is commonly known
by the styrofoam brand name and is used in everything
from coffee cups to coolers. These symbols only scratch the
surface of the hundreds of different types of plastics around you.

(01:56):
Think about it for a second and you can understand
the variety of plastics in use today. A there's nylon, polyurethane, polyurethane, foam,
all sorts of non melting plastics used in cookware. There's
a poxies, fiberglass, polycarbonates, and so on. We've still got
a really long way to go before they're all recyclable.

(02:17):
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