Which Plastic Can Be Recycled?

As you might know, there are seven different types of plastic being used around the world - they differ in size, color, usage and disposal (if you didn’t know you can check our previous article where we explain the difference between these types). But, as a conscious (and curious) consumer, you might wonder: what types of plastic are recyclable? And what products can be obtained by recycling plastic? Well, if you are interested in discovering which plastic can be recycled and are curious about the second life of plastic waste, keep reading!

THE BARRIERS TO RECYCLING

In principle, almost all plastic can be recycled. However, in practice, there are a variety of different barriers that can undermine this process. Unfortunately, it does not always make environmental, economic, or technical sense to do so. Here are some reasons why recycling cannot always happen: 

• Many times, items can include multiple types of plastic and different layers which are hard to separate and make recyclability difficult and costly.

• Plastics can often be contaminated by food and other substances, making the resins not clean enough to be reused.

• Recycling facilities cost millions of dollars to build and operate can only be profitable when a huge amount of plastic is treated every day. Small quantities of plastics can therefore make recycling non-economical and non-beneficial, due to low efficiencies and high costs.

But don’t get discouraged! Despite these barriers, recycling still does happen and incredible products come out of this process. The majority of recycled plastic comes from post-consumer sources. This means that the milk jugs, bottles, packaging films that you throw away in the recycling bin, after undergoing the right process, will become post-consumer recycled material! 

At Plastics for Change, for example, we use post-consumer recycled plastic to produce shampoo bottles, cosmetic caps, packaging films among other products. But let’s take this step by step.

WHICH PLASTIC CAN BE RECYCLED

1-PET 

The most widely recycled plastic in the world is PET. Nonetheless, despite being a relatively easy plastic to recycle, some countries are still struggling to reach decent recycling rates. India, Europe and South Korea all have rates higher than 50% but countries like the US and China are yet to scale up those numbers. 

The latest global statistics tell us that, in 2011, approximately 7.5 million tons of PET were collected worldwide. But what were they transformed into? Well, as crazy as it might seem, a substantial part of PET plastic (mostly found in plastic bottles) is usually recycled into fashion items! Among the items that can be obtained we find polar fleece clothes, backpacks, and carpets. That’s right, the plastic bottle you recycle today can become a cool t-shirt you will wear in a few months! Indeed, this recycling process involves transforming PET into flakes which can then be spun as a yarn. And these yarn are then used to manufacture clothes and other textile garments. 

Alternatively, PET bottles can be recycled into... PET bottles! In fact, they are made of one of the few polymers that can be recycled into the same form – a new beverage bottle – again and again. During the process the PET is generally blended in a ratio of virgin to recycled, to give strength to the material for use in a new product.