What Products Are Made From Recycled Plastic Soda & Juice Bottles?
Plastic bottles can turn up where you least expect them--after recycling as well as before. Some of the plastic bottles you've used as containers for soda, juice, water and other soft drinks may be living second lives as part of your sweatshirt, your porch, or the bridge you drive over to work every day. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
-
Type of plastic
-
PolyEthylene Teraphthalate, otherwise known as PETE or PET, is the material that makes up soda and juice bottles. This type of plastic is distinct from other types such as bisphenol-A (BPA) and thus has different uses when it is recycled.
Function
-
The recycling process begins when a household leaves its empty plastic bottles to be picked up. Trucks haul the plastic bottles to the recycling facility, where they are sorted and then compressed into a bale. The bale is then shipped to another processor where it is broken open, shredded, washed and dried. The plastic is then melted, dyed and extruded (i.e. turned into spaghetti-like strands) and then cut into pellets. These plastic pellets are the raw material for new products.
-
Building Materials
-
Construction ranks among the most common uses of recycled plastic bottles. Plastic composite decks and porches, park benches, railroad ties and even bridges can be built from plastic bottles. The plastic is often mixed with another material to add strength.
Clothing
-
Manufacturers can also melt recycled plastic and spin it into fibers to make into clothing. One such material, called EcoFleece, is used to make sweatshirts, diaper covers, baby shoes and outerwear and is marketed as an earth-friendly, vegan alternative to wool.
Common Items
-
Chairs, lunch trays, and school supplies such as rulers are often made from recycled plastic.
Extraordinary Uses
-
In 1998, Richie Sowa constructed an entire island out of plastic bottles. Using more than a quarter of a million bottles, he built an island with a two-story house, solar oven, beaches and a self-composting toilet. The island was destroyed by a hurricane but he set about rebuilding.
In 2009, David de Rothschild built a 60-foot catamaran out of plastic bottles called the Plastiki with the intention of sailing it from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia.
-
