We typically focus on problems surrounding plastic bag recycling, yet there is an important kind of plastic that is often ignored: plastic film and wrap. Plastic film recycling is a soft plastic that is similar to plastic bags. The usual exclusion of this material when talking about plastic bag recycling is potentially omitting a huge quantity of recyclable material that could be used to make new product packaging.

What is Plastic Film?

Plastic film, plastic overwrap, and also other soft plastic packaging is often found as an alternative packaging option for products that do not use cardboard packaging. Typically, overwrap is discovered as packaging for paper towels, toilet tissue, dry cleaning bags, and etc.

Plastic film is made of polyethylene (PE) plastic. This type of plastic is generally labeled # 2 HDPE or # 4 LDPE in the recycling loop. This does not imply all # 2 and also # 4 plastics fall within this category, just that if it is # 2 or # 4 and flexible it can be recycled.

To be much more certain about what constitutes "flexible," let's make clear that if you can pull and also stretch it with your hands, then it is possibly plastic film. If it tears or makes a crinkling noise, it is not the kind of recyclable plastic film.

How To Recycle Plastic Film？

Plastic film is not accepted in the vast most of curbside recycling programs. Plastic film is a kind of soft plastic that is hard to sort out and also can easily get tangled in recycling center sorting machines. Unless you live in among the rare locations that accept this material, you should never put this kind of plastic in your curbside bins, yet it is able to be recycled at designated drop-off locations.

It is necessary to remember that all plastic film that is meant for recycling need to be clean and dry. There need to be no sticker labels or debris on the plastic. If there is, you can eliminate that portion and also recycle the tidy plastic.

Make certain you do not include any biodegradable or compostable plastic film to the bin. These sorts of packaging are made of an entirely different material and would pollute a load of viable plastic film for recycling.

GREENMAX Plastic Film Recycling New Method

GREENMAX's new plastic film recycling system can quickly help you solve the problem that plastic film is difficult to recycle and reuse!

The Australian government recently issued a policy to ban the export of waste plastic film. The good news is that GREENMAX has developed a new waste plastic film recycling solution to help you easily export waste plastic film or re-manufacture it into new products.

Click here find out more about GREENMAX Plastic Film Recycling Solution!

Recycle More Materials

Plastic film and overwrap is usually an ignored material that is totally recyclable with these drop-off programs. Since only about 9% of plastic produced is recycled, we need to make sure we are getting the plastics that are recyclable to the right places. Understanding what is and is not recycling can assist us recover materials in order to use less natural resources for new items.

The GREENMAX estimates that 14.5 million lots of plastic packaging and also containers are generated yearly. Now you know a large quantity of soft plastic packaging is actually recyclable, you can begin aiding to recover even more materials for recycling.

Plastics are made from oil, so more plastic recovered for recycling means less dependency on oil. It is estimated that with our existing increases in the production of plastic product packaging, by 2050 plastics will certainly make up approximately 20% of our oil intake. If we are not recycling plastics when they are accepted for recycling, we are depending on even more plastics being produced, in turn depending more on the finite sources of oil.

So, ensure you recycle plastic film whenever you come across it, if it is the proper sort of film or overwrap packaging. If you have a need to recycle plastic film or have difficulty recycling plastic film, please contact us today！