Are paper plates recyclable?

Many paper plates are polyethylene coated,these are not easily recycled as the layers are difficult or expensive to separate.

Paper plates can go into general paper recycling systems and are used to make a variety of other products, such as newsprint, toilet paper and kraft paper. Recycled paper is treated with whitening chemicals (bleach, caustic soda), mixed with very hot water, and compressed and dried in rollers at high temperatures, thus essentially destroying the food, ink and other materials in the circulating stream and essentially sterilizing the product.