Since 1988, it’s been easy to identify what type of plastic many products, packaging and containers are made from, thanks to the creation of the Resin Identification Code, or RIC.
This is the number enclosed within a triangle that appears on many plastic items as a guide to its recyclability – but although the symbol originally included the familiar ‘recycling symbol’ of three arrows arranged in a triangular shape, not all plastics marked in this way are actually recyclable.
More recently, it is common to see a solid triangle rather than the triangular ‘recycling’ arrows, in an attempt to reduce the risk of non-recyclable plastics being misinterpreted.
