Can you recycle plastic grocery bags in Austin? Here's what you need to know.

Michael Barnes, Austin American-Statesman
·2 min read
Don't let this happen. Recycle your plastic grocery bags — and the bag that protects the printed American-Statesman from the damp — at H-E-B, Walmart or other stores that provide a specialized recycling bin.
Don't let this happen. Recycle your plastic grocery bags — and the bag that protects the printed American-Statesman from the damp — at H-E-B, Walmart or other stores that provide a specialized recycling bin.

Central Texans have been recycling on an industrial scale since at least World War II, when steel, paper, tin, rubber and fats were recovered in large amounts for the war effort.

If you are older than 50, you might also recall competitive community paper drives during the 1950s and '60s.

Once the Adolph Coors Company introduced aluminum cans in 1958, recovery of that highly reusable material paid a premium for recyclers, some of them down on their luck.

These days, almost everyone is involved in recycling at home, work and play. Even the city's garbage and waste agency has been renamed Austin Resource Recovery.

Yet readers are still confused.

Paper or plastic? If plastic, pick from No. 1 (polyethylene terephthalate) to other end of the spectrum, No. 7 (other). Several social media threads have suggested recently that only rigid plastic Nos. 1-2 are routinely recycled once they arrive at processing centers.

Then there's the matter of plastic grocery bags, which several Texas municipalities outlawed until the Texas Supreme Court intervened. Time for a refresher.

The Austin Answered question of the week: Are plastic grocery bags really recycled?

  • Plastic grocery bags should not be placed in the city of Austin's blue recycling containers because they gum up the sorting machinery. This is not the way to recycle them.

  • They can be dropped off — with an appointment — at the Recycle and Reuse Drop-off Center at 2514 Business Center Dr., or at similar centers in your Central Texas community.

  • For most people, however, it is easier to bring those plastic bags, including those used to carry produce or bulk foods, bread bags, overwrap film, zipper sandwich bags, plastic six-pack rings — but not all types of food wrapping — to a local H-E-B, Walmart or other store that offers drop-off bins at the entrance. Include in this stash the plastic that wraps your printed American-Statesman on wet days.

  • I contacted Leslie Lockett, managing director of sustainability and environmental affairs for H-E-B, who provided extra info. "Since 2004, H-E-B has collected over 58 million pounds of plastic in our storefront plastic bag recycling bins," Lockett shared in a statement. Here's the method: The plastic is baled and shipped to a return-goods center, then shipped to a recycler, where they are made into PCR pellets, which are after that used to manufacture all sorts of products.

More Austin Answered:

Waterloo Conservancy, Waterloo Records, Waterloo Ice House. Why are so many things in Austin named 'Waterloo'?

Where have all the cedar waxwings gone? What to know and how to spot one.

Some want to rename the Austin airport after LBJ. But who is Bergstrom in the ABIA name?

Send your questions about Central Texas past and present to "Austin Answered" at mbarnes@statesman.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: If plastic grocery bags are recycled in Austin, where do they go?