To celebrate Global Recycling Day, which is observed on November 15, The company Ecotechnologies and the recycling plant TotalCycle (part of the EcoPartners Group) decided to showcase the process of recycling plastic bottles.
The video captures the entire process of bottle recycling, providing a brief overview of each stage and the resulting products at the end of the cycle.
Recycling Chain:
- Compressed PET bottles enter the sorting line.
- Piles are broken down into individual bottles.
- PET bottles are cleaned from foreign objects such as bits of soil, stones, wood, and rubber.
- Metal is separated using dynamic and magnetic separators.
- Preliminary cleaning is completed with a wash to remove remaining contaminants.
- The PET bottle then goes through a system of automatic and manual sorting, including sorting by color.
- After manual sorting, PET bottles of a specific color without foreign plastics remain.
- After automatic label separation, the PET bottle goes to washing.
- In the "crusher," the PET bottle is crushed into flakes of 3-15 mm.
- Bottles with lids are crushed together, but then the flakes are separated in a hydroflotation tank.
- PET flakes are washed several times with hot water and dried using air flotation.
- The finished PET flakes are packaged in big bags.
Closing the Loop:
The PET flakes are further used in the production of polyester fiber, PET sheets, PET packaging straps, and other PET products. For example, the fiber becomes a filler for clothing and pillows.
PET flakes are classified into technical and food-grade quality. Food-grade PET flakes serve as raw material for new food packaging and PET bottles. More than half of the PET flakes produced at TotalCycle of food-grade quality are sent to the SIBUR POLIEF plant to produce "green" Vivilen rPET granules with recycled plastic content. These granules are then used to manufacture eco-friendly packaging for goods and beverages.
To learn more about recycling, you can take the free course What Will They Do with Our Recyclables, released by the bureau Now Like This in collaboration with Ecotechnologies, IKEA, and Unisender.
PET flakes are classified into technical and food-grade quality. Food-grade PET flakes serve as raw material for new food packaging and PET bottles. More than half of the PET flakes produced at TotalCycle of food-grade quality are sent to the SIBUR POLIEF plant to produce "green" Vivilen rPET granules with recycled plastic content. These granules are then used to manufacture eco-friendly packaging for goods and beverages.
To learn more about recycling, you can take the free course What Will They Do with Our Recyclables, released by the bureau Now Like This in collaboration with Ecotechnologies, IKEA, and Unisender.