The Procedure of Recycling Waste

Recycling is an effort that involves cooperation on both the domestic and industrial levels.

Sorting recyclable materials such as paper, cardboard, glass, tin, aluminum and even motor oil from other household garbage is only the first step in the recycling process, which benefits both consumers and the environment.

Collection

Sorting out paper, wood, metal, cans and bottles is an important task that individuals and families can get in the habit of doing on a regular basis. Unless materials are properly sorted, they are treated like regular garbage. Boxes and containers should be compacted whenever safely possible. Many cities provide either curbside pickup service or drop-off locations for recycled materials. After materials are collected, they are sorted into groups and cleaned for resale.

Paper and Cardboard

Paper usually goes through a paper mill, where it is turned into pulp, de-inked with detergent, sifted for debris like dirt or tape, bleached, combined with wood pulp for consistency, poured through a wire screen and fed through steam rollers for drying. The process is similar for cardboard, except that the zig-zagged inner layer (called the medium) of corrugated cardboard requires the use of a special machine.

Glass

Glass bottles and jars are mechanically broken into pieces, called cullet, which are then run through a series of magnets, vacuums and screens to remove labels and caps. The cullet is then mixed with other hard substances such as limestone, silica sand and soda ash and placed in a furnace to produce molten glass, which is then sent to factories to create new bottles and jars.

Tin and Aluminum

Tin is sent to a plant where it is run through a series of chemical solutions and electrical processes that clean and separate the tin from the steel in the cans. The steel is then sold to steel mills. The tin, now in the form of sodium stannate, is subjected to an electrolysis bath to form tin plates that are then cast into ingots of 99.98 percent tin, which can be used by pharmaceutical and chemical companies.

Plastic

Plastics can fall in one of seven categories, according to type, which are sorted at a reclaimer and usually crushed into plastic chips. These plastic chips can either be reused immediately or further processed, cleaned and melted in a furnace and broken down into a plastic polymer mixture, which can be used to create new products.

References

• University of Oregon: The Recycling Process After Collection
• Chevron: The Recycling Process
• Earth 911: How Plastic Gets Recycled