Recycling Plastics: How, What, And Why

Products created through plastic injection molding are often reusable

. They are designed to be durable and long-lasting. However, once they have outlived their initial purposes, they can be broken down and recycled so that more plastic products can be created. Below, find information about the plastics recycling process.

How It's Done:

Unlike glass and aluminum, recycling plastic polymers is a relatively complicated process. Heat alone cannot dissolve the molecules that make up most plastic products, and plastics must be recycled with as similar material as possible. Even slight variations in plastics can ruin a single recycling cycle.

Consequently, plastics must be sorted by polymer types and often by color. Most plastics contain numeric labels to identify how and whether they can be sorted for recycling.

To eliminate outside elements, such as paper labels, plastics must be shredded and sifted through once again. Once the recyclable plastics are determined to be pure enough, they are melted and turned into usable pellets for future manufacturing.

Other recycling methods involve converting assorted polymers into petroleum through a less precise method called "thermal depolymerization." That method allows a recycling plant to combine various polymers. Likewise, a method called "heat compression" allows different plastics to be combined in a large tumbler, where they are heated and converted into recycled plastic pellets.

What Can Be Recycled?:

Most plastics can be recycled, although curbside pick-ups vary by area. The major complication associated with plastic recycling is that they must be sorted. Pick-up services might limit what a person can recycle so that the sorting process is minimized.

The most commonly recycled plastics include containers, such as milk jugs, drink bottles and plastic grocery bags.

Other common plastic items cannot be recycled. Many open-top containers, such as yogurt cups or cottage cheese containers, fall into that category. Other non-recyclables include such items as strawberry baskets. Objects made with several types of plastics, such as video tapes or CDs, cannot be recycled, either.

Why Recycle?:

The arguments for recycling are largely environmental. For starters, plastic is one of the most thrown-out materials in the country, and landfills are increasingly cluttered with bottles, plastic bags and packing material.

In addition, plastic production uses large amounts of energy. And incinerating it can force greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

However, arguments exist against recycling plastics. Opponents have argued that the process uses too much energy, notably in such methods as heat compression, where giant drums must be rotated while being heated.

by: Steve Erickson

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