Bubble Mailer Envelopes
- DON’T put them in curbside recycling
- DO consider reusing these envelopes
- DO drop the all-plastic envelopes off at local plastic bag drop-off locations (see below)
About These Items
If you’ve ordered a book or other small item online, you’ve probably received one of these bubble mailer envelopes. They can have a plastic or paper exterior and are lined with a bubble-wrap material inside. Unfortunately, these plastic-infused envelopes can take hundreds of years to decompose and can not be placed in the city’s curbside recycling.
These are usually fairly sturdy envelopes and can often be reused if you need to ship something yourself. Otherwise, the fully plastic envelopes can be recycled at local collection bin for plastic film recycling. (see below.) The paper-exterior envelopes can not be recycled unless you can deconstruct them to separate the paper (which can be recycled curbside) from the plastic material (which can go to the plastic film collection bins listed below.) This is typically quite difficult to do, so avoid these mixed-material mailers if you can.
Drop them off at dedicated local locations.
There are some local locations where you can drop off plastic bags and other flexible film plastics, including bubble mailers made entirely of plastic. Remove the mailing label or cut out and discard that section of the envelope before recycling, since only uncontaminated plastic film should be recycled. The Plastic Film Recycling.org site keeps an up-to-date list of locations that is searchable by zip code.
These local chains typically have plastic bag collection bins on site:
- Giant Eagle
- Target
- Lowes
- Whole Foods
Was this post helpful?
- If this information helped you, please tap "Yes" below and then feel free to leave a comment or suggestion.
- If not, tap "no" and then please tell us how it could be more useful!
