How Plastic is Recycled

As long as people continue to use single serve bottled water containers, the issue of recycling plastic water bottles is an important one. The process of recycling plastic involves several steps, and actually uses a significant amount of energy. Of course, it's much better to recycle plastic bottles than to let them stack up in landfills!

10 Steps in Plastic Recycling:

1. Inspection - Before plastic containers can be recycled, workers have to inspect them to remove any substances that are not recyclable.

2. Washing - Plastic containers must be cleaned before they can be recycled.

3. Chopping - Once recyclable plastic has been washed, it is chopped into flakes.

4. Separation - When several types of plastics are being recycled together, the flakes are placed in a flotation tank, where the different varieties naturally separate from one another.

5. Drying - Following separation, the plastic flakes are placed in a tumble dryer to remove all water.

6. Melting - Once the plastic flakes are completely dry, they are melted in an extruder.

7. Filtering - While still molten, the melted plastic is pressed through a screen, so that any remaining contaminants will be removed.

8. Strand Formation - Once the molten plastic has been filtered, it is shaped into strands.

9. Cooling - The plastic strands are cooled in water.

10. Pelletizing - Once the strands are cooled, they are chopped into pellets of uniform size, which manufactures use to make different types of products.