Plastic Bag Recycling

The Virginia Department of Environmental Qual-
ity encourages households to reuse products and
recycle wastes, including plastic bags. Most of the
plastic bags that are readily available to household
consumers are recyclable, and several grocery store
chains and retailers have drop-off locations in Virginia
for recycling.
The majority of these bags are made with polyethyl-
ene resins. The bags (sometimes called film) are used
in retail and grocery stores, with promotional items,
and as newspaper, dry cleaning, food storage and
packaging wraps. Most of these bags are recyclable,
and businesses have a well-established infrastructure
for recycling them. For the purposes of recycling col-
lection programs that serve the general public, they
are often identified as #2 and
as #4 polyethylene
bags, which have
different densities
or thicknesses. Any
clean, clear plastic
bag labeled as #2 or #4 is
recyclable.