There are a variety of packaging and recycling symbols that you can find on your consumer household products. Here are some of the most important ones in the European region. They are used to identify plastic resins and other packaging materials and also as recycling indicators.
Identification of materials
On this page, you will find the symbols and codes used to identify packaging ingredients.
These symbols are developed predominantly to facilitate recycling of post-consumer plastics through the normal channels for collecting recyclable materials from household waste.
The material identification is voluntary in most, but not all European countries. If it is used, only prescribed combinations of numbers and letters are allowed. The European normalization organisation (CEN) has harmonized this. In the U.S.A., plastic material identification is regulated based on SPI Resin Codes which are almost identical to the codes under European Union legislation. The differences are small. By way of example: The abbreviation for polyethylene terephthalate is - for trademark reasons - PETE in the US and in Europe it is PET.
The symbols used for plastic materials (so-called resins) are always a combination of the recycling loop, combined with an abbreviation and a numerical value.
The overwhelming majority of plastic packaging is made with one of the first 6 listed resins:
- Number 1 : PET(E) (Polyethylene terephthalate) - In technical terms, this is called the 'resin identification code 1 for polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE)'.
- Number 2 : HDPE (High-density polyethylene)
- Number 3 : V or PVC : (Polyvinyl chloride)
- Number 4 : LDPE (Low-density polyethylene)
- Number 5 : PP (Polypropylene)
- Number 6 : PS (Polystyrene)
- Number 7 : All other plastics
No specific material identification is commonly used for glass, paper or cardboard. Additional symbols are used for steel and aluminum.
Recycling schemes
This is the most common symbol. It shows that a fee has been paid for the recovery of the packaging in currently 25 European countries. It is licensed by Packaging Recycling Organization Europe (PRO Europe) to the respective national packaging recovery organisations. These subsequently give licences to use the Green Dot symbol within each country to companies which would like to take part in the collection and recovery system. To find out more, click here.
The mobius loop is used to indicate that an object is capable of being recycled. It is a universally recognized recycling symbol with 3 chasing arrows in an unending loop. It does not necessarily mean that an object has been recycled, but indicates that it can be recycled.
This symbol denotes an object contains x% of recycled material. Use of this symbol is voluntary. It shows how much recyclate has been used. Some goods contain recycled materials but do not carry this symbol.
Interesting websites to find out more are :
www.pro-e.org (Pro-Europe)
www.recycle-more.co.uk