Everyone has heard about the harmful effects of plastic, as our planet is flooded with plastic waste that takes thousands of years to decompose. But we also know that plastic is a versatile and convenient material, so we can even reuse it instead of trying to completely eliminate it from our lives (which wouldn’t happen very quickly anyway). Since plastic does not decompose in a time frame that we can understand, recycling is definitely the best method if we don’t want to always produce new plastics, thereby increasing environmental pollution. That’s why CYCLE uses recycled plastic for its products. Read our article to learn about the types of plastics and their recycling options.
What is plastic?
Plastic is a part of our lives, we encounter it everywhere in our daily lives, but what exactly is plastic? Plastics are synthetic or semi-synthetic organic materials that can be shaped in a variety of ways. They are usually made from fossil fuels, but can also be made from renewable sources. They are versatile and cheap to produce, making them a popular, and even essential, raw material in our modern world.
But not all plastics are created equal. Here are the 6 most commonly used types:
- PET. Also known as polyethylene terephthalate. A common raw material for soft drink and water bottles, it can also be used to make medicine and food boxes, ropes, shopping bags, seat covers, and as a filler for winter clothing and bean bags.
- HDPE. High-density polyethylene, which is used to make shampoo, milk, juice, and detergent bottles, but is also often used as a material for toys.
- LDPE. Low-density polyethylene is a popular raw material in the packaging industry, used to make shopping bags, frozen food bags, and various films.
- PVC. Or if you prefer: polyvinyl chloride. There are hard and soft varieties: soft PVC is used, for example, to make insulating parts covering wires, while the hard variety is used to make water pipes, window frames, and floor coverings.
- PP. Polypropylene, a material that also provides a breeding ground for bad jokes, is the raw material for food containers, margarine containers, kitchen utensils, diapers, disposable cups and plates.
- PS. Polystyrene is a material that can be easily molded when heated, so it is specifically used for disposable utensils (plates, cups, forks, spoons), but sour cream and yogurt boxes are also made of polystyrene. Its foamed version is Hungarocell.
In addition to those listed here, we can also find polycarbonate, polylactide, acrylic and many other types of plastics.
How is plastic made?
The plastic manufacturing process is quite complex, but it can be simply explained with these steps:
- Raw material extraction. Plastics can often be made from crude oil, gas, and sometimes even coal.
- Refining raw materials. Crude oil is processed by the petrochemical industry and converted into monomers, which are the building blocks of polymers. Simple, right? Crude oil is broken down into its components by heating, which is how naphtha is extracted, an important raw material for plastic production.
- Polymerization. Light olefin gases such as ethylene, propylene, and butylene are converted into polymers.
- Processing and assembly. The different raw materials are mixed, then molded and pressed into the required size and shape.
As you can see, this is just a very abstract description of plastic production. The process is much more complicated in reality, but since CYCLE is only interested in recycling, let's jump right in.
There are two main ways to recycle:
- Mechanical recycling. The cleaned plastic is shredded and then melted.
- Chemical recycling. Plastic is broken down into its basic elements using chemical methods.
How does mechanical recycling work?
Plastics usually need to be sorted manually to prevent contamination from entering the amount designated for recycling. The entire process looks something like this:
- Plastics are sorted by type
- The sorted plastics are shredded.
- The shredded plastics are washed.
- The clean, shredded plastic is melted.
- The melted plastic is converted into pellets.
- These pellets are then used to create new products.
What is recyclable and what is not?
As mentioned, there are many types of plastic, but not all of them are recyclable. You might think that if you throw plastic in the right bin, you've done everything you can to protect the environment, but unfortunately, it's more complicated than that.
What can be recycled:
- PET plastics
- HDPE plastics
- LDPE plastics
- PVC plastics
What cannot be recycled:
- PP plastics
- PS plastics
- other plastics
But what determines which plastic is recyclable and which is not?
Plastics can be divided into two groups:
- Thermoplastics. These can be melted and then molded into new shapes, so these plastics can be recycled.
- Thermosetting plastics. The chemical bond in these plastics cannot be broken by heat, so these types cannot be recycled.
And of course, this also depends on other factors, such as the cleanliness of the plastic: if we have a plastic food container full of food, it is worth eating it first, and the container must be washed thoroughly before the container itself can be recycled.
Why is recycling plastic good for us?
Why bother recycling plastic when it's cheap and easy to make new plastic? Well, while recycling plastic is a bit of a hassle, considering that plastic takes thousands of years to decompose, it's still a pretty useful solution.
- We can save a lot of fossil fuels, which are non-renewable, limited in availability, and therefore unsustainable.
- We can also save the energy spent on producing new plastics.
- We need to fill landfills with less waste. Some Western countries are exporting a lot of their garbage straight to Asia so that they don't have to fill their own lands with it.
- We can also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by recycling, so it is an environmentally friendly solution from this point of view as well.
If you are interested in the environmental impact of other materials, glass, aluminum , you can read about them in this article. Recycling plastic is the only sustainable choice, considering that our Earth is slowly drowning in plastic waste. This is exactly why the bottles of CYCLE products are made of recycled plastic, so no new plastic is needed for their production. CYCLE not only sets an example by producing its cleaning products from biomass, but its packaging is also made of recycled plastic.
We believe that we can all do something to protect our Earth!