Plastic - Bags

Many grocery stores, co-ops and retailers, including Cub, Festival, County Market, Target, Best Buy and Walmart, accept clean, dry plastic bags for recycling. Look for kiosks or recycling bins in the store. Clean plastic bags such as bread bags, salt bags (without rigid handles), grocery and other retail store bags, and newspaper bags may be recycled. Other plastic film items that are accepted include: stretch wrap and shrink film, wrappers from paper products (napkins, paper towels, etc), and dry cleaners bags.

Preparation:

Remove all food residue (shake out crumbs), strings or rigid, plastic handles.
Bags must be clean and dry.

Do not recycle these items:

Bags with strings or rigid plastic handles (or cut them off)
Bubble wrap
Items with food residue
Soil or mulch bags
Trash bags, including lawn and leaf bags
Zipper type bags (or cut off zipper)

Why Recycle plastic bags?
Because it provides a valuable feedstock to manufacture plastic lumber.

Trex® Company recycles approximately 1.3 billion recycled plastic bags each year. About half of all recycled grocery bags are used to manufacture Trex® decking.
Each Trex® decking board (16 feet long, 2 x 6 inches) uses approximately 2,250 plastic bags.

What are plastic bags made into?
Plastic bags collected through the It's in the Bag. Program are sorted in the metro area, baled, then sent to the Trex® Company in Winchester, Virginia. Trex® processes the bags to create plastic lumber used in backyard patios and decks. Trex® decking and railing is made from approximately 50 percent recycled plastic film and 50 percent reclaimed wood waste, from used wooden pallets, woodworking operations and other materials that would otherwise go to a landfill.

No non-municipal options for this item. Click here for all options.