Plastic Recycling

UF generates many types of plastic that cannot be recycled with commingled bottles, cans and containers. Facilities Services is working to expand UF’s plastics recycling program, to include many items generated in large quantities on campus and which must be collected separately from bottles and cans. We now accept the following for recycling:

• Pipette tip boxes: Each department or building is responsible for accumulating pipette boxes and bringing them to one of two campus drop sites. (No contaminated boxes are accepted and please remove all labels.)
• “Other” plastics: Plastic materials generated in large volumes may be recyclable. We have identified markets for stadium seats, lab mouse cages, sign scrap material and plastic buckets. If you have a plastic waste stream, we need your samples and an estimation of how much is generated annually. We  send your samples to recyclers’ lab for analysis and let you know in just days about recycling.
• Plastic plant pots: As a major agricultural research institution, UF uses many plant pots that we may recycle. Remove as much dirt as possible (rinsing with water if you can) and stack pots according to their type of plastic and not the pot size. Printing on each pot indicates type (#2, #5, or #6 plastic). Pots without recycling numbers should be discarded in the trash.

As the program grows, we hope to identify even more plastics that can be diverted from the waste stream. We do not have a market for polystyrene (Styrofoam) at this time.

More information

For further information or Recycling Team help, please contact the Recycling and Solid Waste Department at (352) 392-7396 or recycling-waste-management-staff@facilitiesservices.ufl.edu.