This is an excerpt from Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic. An odd symbol, made up of three arrows arranged in a triangle, began showing up on plastic containers across America in the ...

Plastic recycling symbols only tell you what type of plastic an item is made from — not that the item is recyclable. Plastics 1, 2, and 5 are typically recyclable, while 3, 4, 6, and 7 can rarely be ...

It’s a number that you can spot inside the recycling symbol in bottles, containers and other products. The numbers are codes for different types of plastics. The higher the number, the harder it is to ...