Flexible plastics recycling in the SK Recycles household packaging and paper recycling program is a frequent question asked by residents. So, why is it that flexible plastics can only be recycled at SARCAN depots and not in your blue bin program?
Flexible Plastics: SARCAN Depots Only
Flexible plastics are only accepted at SARCAN depots and cannot be mixed in with other recyclables in your city’s recycling container. This is to ensure that they meet recycling end markets’ specifications, and because flexible plastic materials pose the following issues if mixed with other materials during the collection and recycling processes:
- Wrapping around or jamming machinery at recycling facilities which limits the facility’s ability to properly sort recyclables and poses a significant safety concern for the operators.
- Flexible plastics behave like paper in a sorting facility, meaning paper, an easy to recycle commodity, effectively becomes un-recyclable along with the contaminating flexible plastics.
- Contaminating other recycling streams like containers and paper packaging, rendering them unrecyclable
In short, to be able to recycle flexible plastics into pellets for use in new products or packaging, it is important that these materials are not mixed with other materials.
By dropping plastic bags and overwrap off at depots, you can ensure that they will be recycled properly.
What’s Accepted?
Because only the SK Recycles program accepts and recycles all the different types of flexible plastics accepted through its partnership with SARCAN depots. This includes, but is not limited to, materials like:
- Plastic bags used for things like bread, produce and bulk foods. Overwrap used to wrap toilet paper, paper towels and soft drinks
- Crinkly wrappers and bags used for things like cereal, chips and pasta
- Stand-up and zipper-lock pouches for things like granola, grains or dried fruit
- Packaging with a plastic seal used for things like sandwich meats and sliced cheese
- Woven plastic bags used for things like rice and avocados.
A full flexible plastics material list can be found here.
The image below can be used as a handy guide for the types of flexible plastics that are both accepted, and not accepted at a SARCAN depot:
