Plastic Collection

This much plastic has to come from somewhere

When we first got started we really thought it would be easy to find all the plastic we would need, but we quickly realized the more hands the easier collection would go. 

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So we put a call out to friends, family and community members to ask for help collecting plastics. 

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Since then plastic has been coming in from all over the place. 

We've even had groups who organized cleanups and collections. 

We've Collected Plastic From:

> East Gwillimbury, Ontario

> Vaughan, Ontario

> Merrickville, Ontario

> Vancouver, British Columbia 
> Calgary, Alberta 
> Ottawa, Ontario 
> Pickering, Ontario
> Smiths Falls, Ontario

> Runaway Bay, Jamaica 

> Peterborough, Ontario

> Guelph, Ontario

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What Kinds of Plastic do we use?

We use type 5 plastic. Otherwise known as PP or Polypropylene. 

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We find this plastic the easiest to work with, and it comes in fun colours.

How can I identify different types of plastic?

The easiest way to identify plastic is to look for a number inside of a recycling symbol to identify it. 

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The numbers range from 1 -7.

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Typically, they tend to be found on the bottom of a product, they can be quite small and difficult to see. 

Another challenge is many products, like water bottles, have different kinds of plastic. The body of the water bottle tends to be type 1 where the lid is type 2 or 5.

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The tough part is labels aren't mandatory and some plastics have no labels.

Have a specific collection spot in mind?

Unfortunately, we all know a spot that could use a clean up.

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If you know of a spot that could use a revamp, let us know and we'll see if we can organize a collection and reuse for the plastics there.

Why did we pick those plastic materials?

Deciding which kinds of plastic to work with was tough, ideally we could use them all. 

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In the end we decided Type 5 was the safest, with low melting temperatures and it was easy to find in our daily trash.