What is recycled plastic used for?

Plastic rags to riches

Ever wondered what happens to that plastic bottle once you’ve tossed it in a recycling bin? Ever wondered what your jacket filling, outdoor furniture, decking, yoga mat, active wear, togs or toothbrush is made from?

That’s right – if rinsed out properly, your recycling can be reincarnated.

Onto a new life

Once picked up, your recycling is sorted and recyclable plastics are separated from glass, paper, and the items that can’t be recycled.

The plastics are then shredded and filtered to remove impurities like paper before being baled and sold to plastic processors, either domestically or offshore, who’ll make new products from the plastic pellets.

• A batch of clean, separated PET (#1) bottles can be made back into water bottles or broken down, heated, and turned into polyester for clothing, insulation for jackets and sleeping bags, or carpets, cushions, plant holders, buckets, outdoor furniture, decking, and playground equipment.
• Number 2 plastics used in water bottles, milk bottles, bottles of cleaning products and personal cosmetics can be made into new containers, plastic timber, picnic tables, signage, lawn furniture, playground equipment, recycling bins, shoes, piping, garden edging and Lego.
• Packaging, wraps, plumbing pipes, flexible packaging and bags made of #3 plastics go into new piping, carpet backing, fencing, traffic cones and new plastic bags.
• Plastic film and GladWrap can be turned into rubbish bin liners, floor tiles, compost bins, outdoor furniture.
• #5 typically used for clear and coloured medicine bottles, takeaway and ice-cream containers, lunch boxes, plastic cutlery, rope and wrapping tape, as well as jam and honey containers can be transformed into automotive products, household utensils like toothbrushes and razors, outdoor tools, such as garden rakes and brooms and trays. #5 plastic bottle caps can be recycled into car batteries, storage containers, reusable shopping bags, ropes, yarn for rugs, and more bottle caps.
• Light yet stiff #6 plastic used in plastic plates, cutlery, food containers, cd cases, small hard-wearing bottles, cable spools, and toys can become light switches, plastic mouldings, packaging, desk trays.

Breaking it down further

As you can see, plastics can be remanufactured into a wide array of products. But just to get a little more specific:

• a pair of leggings can save 25 PET plastic water bottles from ending up in landfills
• one old plastic bottle becomes one pair of shoelaces
• one British company has turned 300,000+ plastic bottles into swimwear
• a recycled backpack reuses up to 10 plastic bottles
• 83,300 yoghurt pots went into the resurfacing of Liardet St in New Plymouth - around 500kg of plastics of type three to seven were used in the 90m of resurfacing.

On a global scale, almost 300 million tons of plastic are produced annually: it’s estimated that one million plastic bottles are sold around the world each minute. By recycling existing plastic materials into new products for sale, companies tap into a renewable source, thereby reducing the production of new plastic items and keeping old plastic out of landfills.

Talk to the team at Insinc about our recycled bin liners, wheelie bins, signage, cutlery and products from recycled beverage cartons.

While you might hope that all the plastic containers you chuck into your home recycling bin gets recycled, that, sadly, is just wish-cycling. You may be ruining the chances of other items in your bin getting recycled if you throw in the wrong plastics or dirty plastics that haven’t been rinsed out.

Any plastic material with food residues on (or in) it cannot be recycled. In order for plastics to be transformed into recycled goods, they must be of a certain standard. So what to do?

• Wash first, then recycle. Washing your plastics improves their chances of being recycled into new material.