A short history of the practice of plastics recycling as practiced in the United States and Europe for the past ten years indicates that much progress has been made in educating the public sector about the environmental damage done by the indiscriminating disposal of plastic items and potential opportunities to recycle them. Recent legislation has made the collection of some discarded plastic articles more efficient, and has provided economic incentives to recover and reuse waste plastics. A discussion of the methods of collecting, separating, cleaning, and fabrication of plastic wastes into useful items leads to the conclusion that much work is yet to be done to develop more efficient ways to perform these tasks. In addition, improvements in blending the disparate plastic materials in wastes could lead to the production of better products made from recycled materials. The public must be made aware of the fact that consumer products made of recycled plastics are often as good as those made of virgin material. And that the resulting environmental benefits as well as energy savings are for the common good. (Copyright (c) 1992 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.)