The What, Why & Where to Recycle Plastic Bags
Plastic bags. They keep our food fresh and safe, conveniently hold stuff together, and litter the heck out of our land and sea. So above all, the best plastic bag is the one not needed. That being said, despite our best efforts, plastic still comes into our life. It then becomes imperative that we deal with it responsibly.
Can I recycle plastic bags?
No, plastic bags cannot be mixed at our curbside mixed recycling bins (and neither should these things), mostly because plastic film gets caught in the machinery at a Material Recovery Facility and mucks up the whole system. Plastic film, however, CAN be recycled at many grocery stores across Central Oregon. Look for bins usually located indoor or outdoor near entrances.
What is plastic film?
Grocery shopping bags are considered plastic film, and so are a lot of other common products that you’re probably currently tossing in the trash or tossing in hour home recycling bin, unaware of the headaches you’re creating down the line. Here’s a quick list of what you can bring:
- Plastic shopping bags
- 100% plastic shipping envelopes (bubble mailers) – paper label removed
- Bread bags – clean!
- Dry cleaning bags
- Case wrap (think case of water bottles)
- Air pillows
- Food storage bags (zip-locs) clean!
- Bubble wrap
- Product overwrap (like toilet paper for example)
- Newspaper bags
Where can I recycle plastic bags and film?
When we posted our video on social media, one of the questions was WHICH grocery stores accept plastic bags. Well I didn’t have a recent list so I called around to the major grocery stores around Central Oregon to get an accurate list of which stores provided a bin where customers could recycle their plastic shopping bags. Here is a current list of those stores:
BEND
- Safeway: All 3 locations – Westside, Midtown & Eastside
- Albertson’s: Both North & Sounth locations
- Fred Meyer
- Food For Less
- Target
- Best Buy
- Lowe’s
REDMOND
- Safeway
- Albertson’s
- Fred Meyer – at the apparel entrance only
- Lowe’s
SISTERS
- Ray’s Food Place
LA PINE
- Ray’s Food Place (currently no bin out front but they will accept them at ther service counter )
- Shop Smart
MADRAS
- Safeway
PRINEVILLE
- Ray;s Food Place
See more info at PlasticFilmRecycling.org (but please know that the list compiled here of participating stores is more current than their list. Trust me, I called lots of stores!). Be sure to tell a friend as not a lot of people know about this!
This is great news! I really appreciate being able to recycle all these plastic film items!
Thank you! This is so helpful!
It’s fantastic to learn that aluminium can be recycled many times over and over again. My wife and I are wanting to take better care of the environment and we were wondering what we can recycle in our house. I’ll be sure to tell her that we should look for aluminium things in our home that we could potentially recycle.
Nice to see that you’re exploring more about this issue, as I know that not many people are aware of what can and cannot be recycled.