Recycling by product massive number of types of plastic, they each carry a resin identification code, and must be sorted before they can be recycled. This can be costly; while metals can be sorted using electromagnets, no such 'easy sorting' capability exists for plastics. In addition to this, while labels do not need to be removed from bottles for recycling, lids are often made from a different kind of non-recyclable plastic. To help in identifying the materials in various plastic items, resin identification code numbers 1-6 have been assigned to six common kinds of recyclable plastic resins, with the number 7 indicating any
Resin identification code SPI stated that one purpose of the original SPI code was to "Provide a consistent national system to facilitate recycling of post-consumer plastics." The system has been adopted by a growing number of communities implementing recycling programs, as a tool to assist in sorting plastics. In order to deal with the concerns of recyclers across the U.S., the RIC system was designed to make it easier for workers in materials recovery and recycling facilities to sort and separate items according to their resin type. Plastics must be recycled separately, with other like materials, in order to preserve the value of