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Republished for sanity's sake



CITIZEN ALERT: do not mix your food container lids. A Q2 container lid is NOT the same as a Q5 container lid, even if they look the same. How do I know this? Well, here is my story.

I live in the very hoity-toity North-West Province *sic*. Sure, it might look like just farm country. A lot of the Q3 houses might seem a little worse for wear. But we are very picky about what plastic we recycle. We recycle only those numbered 1 and 2.

In case you did not know, your plastics are numbered. On the bottom of most plastic containers, there is a number, usually from 1 to 5. I suppose 1 is the best, since anything with a number of 3 or more just is not high-class enough for us to recycle. "Yet 5 remains the most expensive!" ~ Editor

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. My overactive curiosity got the better of me and I emptied the fridge to try to figure out this plastic numbering thing. What else does one do in the middle of the night while eSA lies restless with what appears to be a media blackout?

My wife came down to the kitchen. "What on earth are you doing?"

"Just snacking," I replied.

She scanned the table, covered with Q2 foods, hand cream, cream cheese, plum sauce, juice, shampoo, and an empty Q4 food bucket. "OK, I'm not actually eating any of these," I admitted. "I'm looking for numbers on the bottom to see which of these plastic containers is high-class enough for us to recycle."

"You are NOT recycling our brand new tub of Q5," my wife declared. "And that juice jug is supposed to last us a few more years."

"Of course," I said in my most believable comforting tone. "It's just a curiosity thing”.

"Oh, one of those," my wife sighed.

Clearing up the Q5 recycling confusion

"You see, both the Q2 and Q5 containers are made of PP."

"PP?" my wife asked.

"Yes, PP. Plastic number 5, also called Polypropylene."

"Oh. That's a relief."

"But the lids are not the same. The Q2 top is a number 4, whereas the Q5 top is a number 2."

"You mean the lids are not made of the same plastic as the containers?" my wife exclaimed.

"Exactly," I replied. "And not the same as each other. There must be a reason they use, for the Q2 top, a plastic of such poor upbringing that our recycling program rejects it. It might be dangerous to mix them up."

"That's silly."

"Then why else would they need three different plastics for two simple containers that are used for essentially the same purpose under the same conditions?"

My wife turned around to leave. "Wait," I cried. "There's more."

"I was afraid of that."

"The parfait container, Q4, has no number. Does that mean it's undercover? The lid is a 4, which means we can switch it with the Q2 lid, but not with the Q5 lid."

She explains, "The Q4 container is clear. You can see through it. Maybe they can't recycle see-through plastics."

"Exactly what I thought," I exclaimed. "But look at your shampoo. It's in a clear bottle, a number 1. But the matching conditioner, which is not clear, is in a number 2."

"That makes sense," my wife assured me. "Maybe."

"Not really. Plastic number 2 is used in the Q5 lid, the big ice cream bucket and the vitamin jar. Besides, here is another Q5 container made of clear plastic, and it is also a 5 with a 4 lid."

"This is way too confusing," my wife said. "We have a baby to attend to. She just can't seem to sleep."

"With all our plastic containers mixed up like this, who knows what the eWorld is coming to," I cried. "No wonder she can't sleep."

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~ Another article consumed for eRepublik use