The Plastic Cycle

Plastic is unique to modern times.  Plastics were literally unknown 100 years ago and now are a big part of our everyday life.  From the bottle of water you drank today to many of your toys, we use plastics each and every day.

There are seven different types of plastics which are made from six different polymers.  Plastic containers generally have a number 1 through 7 on the bottom of the container.  Each type of plastic has certain characteristics, which makes it better for particular uses.  For example, the most commonly used plastic is the number 1. This type of plastic is polyethylene terephthalate or PET.  PET is durable and lightweight which works well for holding liquids, water and soda.  Most of our drink bottles are made of PET.

Let’s follow the cycle of your water bottle.  The cycle starts when you place your plastic water bottle into your recycling containers.  The bottle is transported to the Material Recovery Facility or MRF.  The plastics must then be separated from the other recyclable materials on a sorting line.  Depending on the types of equipment at the MRF, plastics may be sorted by people who separate the plastics.  Other MRFs have “optical sorters”.  An optical sorter separates the plastic by shining a beam of light through the plastic.  The optical sorter identifies the type of plastic and pushes it off the sorting line with a burst of air into a special container of similar materials.

Once sorted, the plastic is baled and sent to a manufacturer to be made into new products.  When the plastic arrives at its destination, it is cleaned and ground into flakes.  These flakes are melted in a furnace and made into a variety of new products.

Plastic water bottles (PET) can be made into new bottles.  However, they are most commonly made into carpeting, fiberfill for winter coats or various types of polar fleece fabrics.

Did you know?

• American’s use 2,500,000 PET bottles per hour only 5% are recycled.
• It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water.
• Recycling one PET bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.