PET Bottle Recycling : Process and Importance

For many environmentalists, recycling symbols begin and end at the recycling bin. And for most people, recycling is a simple act of throwing something away into a large box labelled as a recycling bin which is enough for them to make them feel that they have done their part.

When it comes to PET bottle recycling which can include products like water bottles, soda bottles, oil bottles and other similar products customized by a manufacturer into the bin. For some, the process may seem only to bring the bottles to a recycling center near them. While this process of recycling PET bottles or products is accurate to some extent, when it comes to recycling by the manufacturers and suppliers there are many more steps involved before PET plastic can be truly recycled and processed into a whole new product such as a plastic bottle, container, sheet or back into its earlier form.

PET Recycling Process:

Step1: Collecting PET bottles

The very first step in recycling of any plastic be it PET is the collection of bottles. As mentioned above, for most people recycling is simply as dropping these in the blue recycle bin and via drop offs at recycling centres. In this way a major part of bottles are collected and recycled after sorting. The materials might include glass, aluminium cans, plastic bottles and other materials which are partially sorted manually.

Step 2: Sent for further analysis at a centre

Once materials are collected and sorted, all the bottles are balled, compacted or crushed in large bundles and sent to a plant nearby either locally situated or abroad for processing it into plastic flakes. Other materials like glass, metals and cardboard all are packaged and sent off to their respective facilities for further processes.

Note that the amount of sorting also depends on the PET bottle manufacturer, purchasers specifications and to the extent to which consumers separate recyclable materials of different types.

Step 3: The recycling process starts

All the collected PET plastic wastes are delivered to the centre and the recycling process begins. The bottles or plastic material when arrived is usually in large quantities that have already been separated according to colors. First, these are sent into the washing plant to recover the plastic bottles and clean them for the reuses. At the same time, sorting and grinding are not sufficient for the re-manufacturing of PET bottles. So there are multiple procedures involved as there are many items that are physically attached to the PET bottle or containers that require further processing. These items might include base cups, labels or caps which also need to be separated from each bottle as in most cases the bottle caps are not made from PET plastic.

Why recycle PET bottles?

There are some plastics that can only be recycled ones or twice and some of them are hard to recycle for technical and economic reasons. Though PET bottles are widely accepted to be recycled again and again. Because of this reason it is readily used and accepted in markets available for their usage. The main reason is to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills and then are converted into products that can be widely used. PET plastic is generally difficult to sterilize using high heat as it has the tendency to absorb the food and beverages that are used to contain it, therefore when recycled it is usually down-cycled into a lower quality grade of plastic such as carpets.