Once Plastic Is Collected Does It Need to Be Cleaned Before Recycling It Again

April 05, 2022 Post a Comment

For many, environmentalism begins with the recycling symbol and ends at the recycling bin. The simple act of throwing something abroad into a large box marked with a recycling sign is enough to make some of usa feel like nosotros've washed our role.

It'due south similar eating only half of a chocolate chip cookie– we indulge, but not that much. Similarly, our religion in the magic of the recycling bin makes purchasing and using plastic products a little more guilt-free.

But recycling is a lot more complicated, and the process of recycling plastics is significantly less transparent than the much-Googled recipe for baking cookies.

Information technology's a system dictated by market demand, price determinations, local regulations, the success of which is contingent upon everyone, from the product-designer, to the trash-thrower, to the waste material collector, to the recycling manufacturing plant worker.

Nosotros consumers play a much more disquisitional role than nosotros might imagine– depending on how we use our products and in what shape nosotros throw them abroad, determines their value and quality post-employ. Think nigh it. Recycled goods have to compete with new products in the market; who wants to purchase something of lower quality?

I've spent the last five months talking to various experts in Taiwan, one of the earth's innovators in recycling systems AND major producers of plastics, to put together this list. My hope is to bring more transparency to a organisation inseparable from our very beingness, but whose visibility often starts and stops at the trash can.

7 infographics correspond to the 7 classifications of plastics and debunk common (mis)assumptions about plastics & recycling.

ane. Non ALL PLASTIC IS RECYCLABLE.

Plastic bags– Non recyclable.

Straws– Not recyclable.

Coffee Cups– you need a special motorcar; without it, no.

Keyboards– maybe, if you get it to the correct person.

"Recycling" is determined past two really important things: the market place and urban center government . Tweet this If there'southward a demand in the market, then recyclers and companies will pay for your post-consumer recyclables.

But without a marketplace demand, those recyclables are almost useless; placing them in the recycling bin won't brand a deviation if you can't make money off of them. If the demand isn't there, or the quality of the materials post-use is incurably dirty, they end up in landfill or incinerators.

Your local authorities also plays an essential role. Authorities regulations create market opportunities for companies to recycle legally-mandated products. Simply every municipality is dissimilar. Before you throw something away, cheque what your city actually recycles.

Public investment in recycling systems, moreover, is integral to their long-term sustainability and success. While the cost of purchasing a new piece of plastic is far cheaper than paying someone's salary to manage and sort recyclables, the ecology toll is substantially greater. Subsidies, investments and public back up go a long way.

Only because IT has the recycling sign doesn't mean it ACTUALLY gets recycled.

2. NOT ALL PLASTIC IS CREATED EQUAL.

Plastics are classified into seven categories co-ordinate to Resin Identification Codes (RIC). They are differentiated by the temperature at which the material has been heated, and their numerical nomenclature (#1 – #7) only informs yous what type of plastic it is. For example:

#one (PET), ex: water bottles — highest recycling value; keep out of the sunday to forbid toxins leaking into the container (no bueno for your health).
#7 (OTHER) is the catch-all category. It includes non-recyclables and corn-based plastics (PLA). (Equally a consumer, you can't tell the difference.)

What it doesn't tell you lot:

1. Wellness EFFECTS: plastic has been linked to disrupting hormonal growth and carcinogens. While its use is as well associated with public hygiene and preventing bacteria contamination (many Taiwanese, for example, use plastic straws to drinkable everything from beer to milk out of fright of a contaminated supply concatenation), consumers should be wary of chemicals leaching into nutrient or drink products.

According to the Scientific discipline History Institute, "[c]urrent wellness concerns focus on additives (such equally bisphenol A [BPA] and a class of chemicals called phthalates) that go into plastics during the manufacturing process, making them more flexible, durable, and transparent."

Most experts agree that you should stay abroad from #3 PVC (ofttimes found in pipes) and #six PS (Styrofoam, often used as food/drink containers).

2. HOW IT'S Fabricated: Did you lot know that most plastics originate from crude oil? Only plastics labeled PLA are made from the sugars in corn or other plant-starches like cassava.

3. RECYCLABILITY: Oft nosotros only throw things away into the recycling bin with the full organized religion that theywill be recycled just because the label says its recyclable. But that's not ever the instance.

Moreover, there are 2 types of plastics: thermoset vs. thermoplastics. Thermoplastics are plastics that can exist re-melted and re-molded into new products, and therefore, recycled. All the same, thermoset plastics "incorporate polymers that cross-link to form an irreversible chemical bond," significant that no matter how much heat you lot use, they cannot exist remelted into new fabric and hence, non-recyclable.

"while so many plastic products are dispensable, plastic lasts forever in the surroundings. It was the plastics industry that offered recycling as a solution."

3. Java CUPS CAN'T Really BE RECYCLED.

Feel good once yous finish your Starbucks and place that innocuous paper cup in the recycling bin? Well, it's a little more complicated than that.

While the outside of the loving cup is fabricated of paper, within is a thin layer of plastic. The PP (Polypropylene) movie protects the liquid from seeping into the paper (and thereby burning you) and keeps your warm beverage from cooling besides quickly.

Considering there are two different materials, the cups cannot exist recycled unless the materials are separated, which is impossible to practice past manus and requires a special machine.

That'south why the easiest items to recycle are the products made from a single fabric. Water bottles (100% PET plastic) are a prime instance of this.

Java cups are similar to the packaging enclosing snacks like wellness confined. Both are multi-layered, with each layer serving a particular purpose, e.yard. wax layer for the label, or the aluminum layer to preclude external heat from altering the chemical composition of the particular before yous purchase information technology.

This kind of pattern, even so, makes recycling the production super hard, particularly since the layers are often very thin and stacked tightly on top of one another. It'south just non cost-effective and far too time-consuming for a recycling factory to separate and recycle each slice.

These layers are not visible to the naked eye, making information technology hard to empathise THAT THE Product cannot exist recycled AS IS.

4. You lot CAN'T RECYCLE Muddy PLASTIC.

Got a fiddling pizza sauce and cheesy goodness left on that pizza box? At present it can't exist recycled (yous can still compost it though!).

Whatever plastic fabric with food residues on (or in) information technology CANNOT exist recycled. In order for plastics to be transformed into recycled goods, they must exist of decent quality. So what to do?

Wash Start, THEN RECYCLE.
Wash your plastics after every use, and so they take the run a risk to be recycled into new material.

Remember, recycled materials (i.eastward. your trash) must compete with virgin materials in the market, so quality matters.

In Taiwan, there are several groups of people who sort trash, remove food remnants from bento boxes, so send the containers to the recycling factories (since the outside material is generally paper).

Some recycling factories and so take these goods and launder them multiple times before they are cut, reheated and transformed.

But virtually of the time, a "muddied" recyclable thrown into a public trash/recycling bin doesn't even take the chance to finish up at the recycling factory; it's determined useless (meaning either too troublesome, to make clean, or not capable of generating income from) and lumped with all the other trash that ends up in landfill or the incinerator.

RINSE OUT AND WASH YOUR PLASTICS BEFORE YOU RECYCLE THEM. Clear ALL FOOD RESIDUALS TO GUARANTEE THEY HAVE A SHOT OF MAKING IT TO THE RECYCLING Manufacturing plant.

v. RECYCLING PLASTIC DOWNGRADES ITS QUALITY.

First, it's important to know that plastics are but polymers, long chains of atoms "arranged in repeating units often much longer than those institute in nature."

According to the Science History Plant, the "length of these chains, and the patterns in which they are arranged, are what make polymers stiff, lightweight, and flexible. In other words, it's what makes them soplastic."

Every time plastic is recycled, the polymer chain grows shorter, And then ITS QUALITY DECREASES.

The same piece of plastic can merely be recycled about 2-3 times before its quality decreases to the indicate where it can no longer be used.

Additionally, each fourth dimension plastic is recycled, additional virgin material is added to help "upgrade" its quality, so that the recycled product has a fighting chance in the market confronting new, durable and fresh goods. Then when you lot read the characterization "recycled material," recall twice well-nigh what the give-and-take "recycled" really means in that context.

6. Glass AND Metal CAN Exist RECYCLED INFINITELY.

You read that right. Unlike plastic, glass and metallic (including aluminum) can be recycled infinitely without losing quality or purity in the product. Tweet this There's no demand to add together additional virgin material in the recycling process– recycling glass and metal is the ultimate form of circular economy, the process of using and then reusing materials without generating any waste. (Spring Puddle Drinking glass Co. Ltd., a glass recycling and innovation company based in Taiwan, is an excellent case of this.)

So then why did nosotros make the switch to plastic? Dasdy Lin, Sustainability Consultant at the Plastics Manufacture Development Center (PIDC), shared these iii reasons:

Global transportation shipping costs

Safety – consistency and stability of products without risk of breaking

Profit

"Say for instance, I ship 100 bottles and in the end, I only receive 98 because 2 broke. That's capital letter loss. Just plastic rarely breaks.Plus, if we are looking at life-cycle assessment, information technology will probably accept more energy to transport the drinking glass bottles than the plastic ones because drinking glass is heavier. Theweight deviation volition outcome in the consumption of more fuel during transportation.Then the negative effect on the surround is more fuel-burning, which results in more than pollution."

vii. "THE EVERYTHING ELSE" CATEGORY.

The next time you utilize a plastic production, flip information technology over and check the lesser. If you see #seven in the center of a iii-arrowed triangle, you accept no manner of knowing for certain whether its recyclable or non-recyclable (fifty-fifty plastics manufacture people and recyclers can't tell sometimes).

#vii is the "other" put-everything-else-that-is-non-#1-6 category. It includes both non-recyclable and "biodegradable" plastics. Tweet this Polylactic acid (PLA), for instance, is a #vii plastic. It is fabricated from establish-starch instead of petroleum, and therefore, marketed every bit "biodegradable." (For your reference, most synthetic plastics come from rough oil.)

I use quotations here because information technology's important to know that electric current biodegradable products tin merely decompose if they are sent to a special factory, where the temperature and humidity is specially controlled, and lumped together with other compostable plastics. (If those plastics are thrown into landfill and mixed in with other trash, it doesn't thing if they're compostable or not. They're not going back into nature if they're stuck in between layers of other waste.)

Another example of a #7 plastic is melamine, a non-recyclable plastic used often in food containers like bowls. Its merits to fame: its durability and existence dish-washer safety. In Taiwan, melamine can exist spotted in night markets (beware pink bowls the next time you want to try some pork over rice 滷肉飯 (lu rou fan)). According to Dasdy Lin, y'all can't recycle melamine considering it is a thermoset plastic: "it won't melt again- the merely way is to incinerate it."

We live in a plastic era.

From the apparel nosotros wear to the food nosotros swallow, plastic has become a household staple for families and communities around the earth. Given its prominence, and the fact that scientists guess it takes somewhere between 450 -1,000 years to decompose (some argue it will never decompose), it is essential for united states of america to understand this textile.

Only powered by knowledge can we take the necessary actions to transform our relationship with plastic and protect our families, communities & the environment.

*Special thanks to Cory Howell for all the incredible sketches used in the infographics!

** Thank you also to Nate Maynard,Consultant at the Chung-hua Establishment for Economic Inquiry (CIER), for cantankerous-checking the information to a higher place and providing some of the linked academic resources!