'Kenneth, what's the frequency?' - Secret plastic codes revealed

Dr. Robert L. Wolke is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.

He writes an excellent weekly column called "Food 101" for the Washington Post Food section about things chemical and food.

He's also written a book entitled, "What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained."

His column earlier this week was especially fascinating to me: he deconstructed the mysterious recycling codes on the bottom of plastic containers.

He pointed out that for recycling, plastics must be melted down only with their chemical family members.

That's because different plastics have different softening temperatures and may not mix with other kinds.

Here's his list of the most common plastics with their coded abbreviations and numbers:

• polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is coded 1;

• polyethylene (PE) can be either high-density polyethylene (HDPE, code 2) or
• low-density polyethylene (LDPE, code 4);

• polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is code 3;

• polypropylene (PP) code 5;

• polystyrene (PS) code 6; and miscellaneous others, primarily

• polycarbonate (PC) are code 7.

The number codes are inside that little triangle made of arrows.

FunFacts: here's what my laundry room and kitchen yielded just now when I put on Wolke's "secret decoder ring":

• Code 1 - Banana Boat Dark Tanning Oil; Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter; Windex; Murphy Oil Soap

• Code 2 - Downey; Woolite; Febreeze; 409

• Code 3 - Goo Gone; Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Oil

• Code 5 - Dannon Yogurt; Lea & Perrin's Steak Sauce

• Code 7 - Tropicana Orange Juice; Nalgene Water Bottle; Tasters Choice Instant Coffee

No Code 4's or Code 6's to be found.

What fun.

You see how very little it takes to amuse me.