Clean Tec

On plastic recycling

December 26 | Updated on December 26, 2021

A few facts about recycling

#Recycling, rather than incinerating plastic, saves twice as much energy.

#Only 12 per cent of the energy used to convert petroleum into plastic is needed to recycle it.

#Before being recycled, plastics are sorted according to their resin type, either manually or automatically, or by colour.

#In mechanical recycling, plastic is washed, ground and melted; inchemical recycling, plastic is broken down into monomers to form new polymers for reuse.

#The most commonly recycled plastics are polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used in water bottles and plastic trays; high-density polyethylene (HDPE), found in milk cartons and shampoo bottles; and polypropylene (PP), found in food boxes and ready-meal trays.

#Plastic bottles can be recycled into duvet fillings, home insulation materials, clothing, bin liners, carrier bags, DVD and video game cases, compost bins, park benches, new bottles and more!

#A single tonne of recycled plastic saves (approximately) 23 cubic metres of landfill, 3,114 litres of oil, and 20,786 megajoules of electricity.

Published on December 26, 2021

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