The Stages of PET Recycling: What Happens After You Throw A Plastic Bottle Out

The Stages of PET Recycling: What Happens After You Throw A Plastic Bottle Out

Plastic is a vigorously growing man-made material that is non-biodegradable and needs recycling for better living conditions around the globe. Not only this but its manufacturing requires non-renewable resources such as petroleum in huge quantities which makes recycling necessary to preserve & maximize the utilization of these resources. Currently, plastics of many kinds are getting recycled and made into a variety of products used across industries. 

Let’s talk about the process of recycling PET plastic in India which is the most recyclable plastic and includes plastic wastes such as plastic bottles. Following is the stepwise demonstration.

1. COLLECTION OF THE PLASTIC WASTE

After a plastic bottle is thrown out, it goes through several processes to make it useful again. Plastic waste is collected from different areas including trash bins from public areas, restaurants, municipalities, etc through an extensive yet disorganized mechanism.  Under this mechanism, rag pickers collect waste from different areas of the assigned colonies. 

2. SORTING AND CATEGORIZING

The collected plastic waste then reaches ‘kabadiwalas’ who further sort and categorize the waste into various types of plastic and pack them to be sent out to various recycling units. 

3. SORTING AND PRE-WASHING

The incoming bales are washed and sorted via both manual and automatic channels to clean the waste and ensure minimum contamination.

4. SHREDDING AND METAL DETECTION

This step involves shredding the bottle into small and granular flakes. Further, sorters in recycling facilities sort metal and prevent it from entering further stages.

5. WASHING AND FLAKE SORTING

Flakes are then further washed to get rid of any contamination, dust etc. A series of sorting machine steps further ensures that no degraded flakes or other material enter the next step. 

6. Pelletizing 

Depending on the end usage, flakes may be used directly to prepare end products like fibres and spun yarn. In the case of special-use products, however, flakes are further melted and pelletized to improve consistency and remove any other contamination such as volatile gasses, to make it safe for even food packaging. 

7. REFORMING

 Pellets can be used to make a number of end-use products like filament yarns, recycled bottles, and sheets.  

OUR ROLE

Go Rewise as the prominent brand by Ganesha Ecosphere is working with hundreds of ‘kabadiwalas’ & waste managers across the country to produce eco-friendly products including rPET flakes, rPET chips – bottle & rPet chips textile grade, rPET fully-drawn yarn, and many more to make a difference. These have applications in industries ranging from packaging, apparel, automotive, etc., hence, adding to transform the plastic economy. If you need any of the above-recycled material contact us to talk to our recycling managers.