Plastic Types

When looking at tubs and lids you will see abbreviations for the different plastic types, they are defined here.

HDPE - High Density Poly Ethylene, usually made from petroleum, although there are some materials with a percentage of sugar cane, it is recyclable. The softer plastic tubs, like Duma, are HDPE.

LDPE - Low Density Poly Ethylene, usually made from petroleum, it is mostly recyclable. The push-on lids with tear-off strips, like Duma and Snapsecure, are LDPE.

PP - Polypropylene, usually made from petroleum, it is mostly recyclable. Most screw lids, ribbed or smooth, like the G&G range, are PP.

PET - Polyethylene Terephthalate, usually made from petroleum or natural gas, it is recyclable. The shiny, hard transparent or opaque tubs, like the G&G range, are PET. It is available manufactured from post-consumer recycled material from 30% up to 100% and termed RPET.

RPET - Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate, as above.

PLA - Polylactic Acid, a biodegradable plastic material made from renewable resources like corn or sugar cane. It can look like PET but does not have the same barrier properties and is affected by heat. It is only industrially compostable, as it requires a specific temperature to start breaking down. In the UK a home compost heap is not hot enough and our ground temperatures are rarely enough to start decomposition, so they would fail to break down in land-fill. Also, they are not recyclable (by any UK plants), so if put in home recycling bins they tend to contaminate the whole batch, which then gets burnt or sent to land-fill.

Urea - Urea-Formaldehyde, a hard type of plastic with many industrial uses, can be recycled but rarely is as it is complex and difficult. Some lids are made of urea.

Bakelite - another hard synthetic plastic made from phenol and formaldehyde, which come from coal tar and wood alcohol, it is named after its inventor Leo Baekeland. Like urea it can be recycled but rarely is as it is complex and expensive, so not worth it. Some lids are made of Bakelite.

SAN - Styrene-acrylonitrile, a copolymer of styrene and acrylonitrile, it is not currently recyclable. Used for some lids, like on the Miron glass.