I have consumed a few jars of peanut butter over the past few months and am wondering how to dispose of them (recycling or rubbish). On the bottom, there is the word 'PETE', presumably an acronym for some sort of plastic, with the recycling symbol. Could somebody please enlighten me as to how to proceed?
Areyou sure it wasn't PET? Or have you stolen all of Pete's peanut butter?
While PET is the more often seen abbreviation, PETE does show up occasionally for polyethylene terephthalate. To the best of my knowledge, they go in the garbage here. If you were living in Germany, they would go in one of the yellow bags - but I don't think they have that program here in Switzerland, garbage, as all other matters, seem to be handled at the Gemeinde level and can vary from area to area...It seems the only PET that gets recycled here are the drink bottles.
Well, regardless whether the PET symbol is on, I dispose any plastic container in the PET recycling bin...the recycling facility normally have people or a device to dissect any container which is not recyclable.
Pretty sure the jars say 'PETE' and not 'PET'. Admittedly, I had never seen this recycling acronym until I looked at the bottom of the jar yesterday. Until somebody tells me otherwise, I think the peanut butter jars are going in the garbage. I have yet to see anything in a supermarket or in my town for recycling 'PETE'.
I know this is an old thread, but thought I'd add to it all the same (since I'm trying to find out where the LDPE, HDPE, PS, PP and all the OTHER plastic types get recycled in my gemeinde...I'm beginning to suspect that they don't, which is a shock to me!).
I come from Vancouver, Canada, and most of our dacron (or "1") plastics are labelled either PETE or PET. PETE was much more common than PET, but it seems like they're both equally represented now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate
(PETE = PET = "1": they're all the same stuff). Shove it in with the rest of the PET stuff!
do you wash the jars first?
PET recycling should just about break even in cost. Sadly, because so many people do as you do, it is hugely expensive, and some Communes/Gemeinde have given up due to cost of sorting. BTW even PET bottles cannot be recycled if they have contained any oil, vinegar, washing medium or toiletries. Our Commune is having a huge fight trying to make locals understand how to properly recycle plastics, so that it does not cost hugely (which in the end is paid by all of us taxpayers, including you). Thanks.
The cost of sorting is real hard too, at least in Australia the sorting is electronic using a infra red sorting machine.