What happens to plastic water bottles when they get recycled?

Have you ever wondered what happens to your plastic water bottles after you throw them in the recycling? It would be fair to say that they are sent to a recycling facility, but what does that actually mean for the bottles? The whole process of recycling your plastic bottles into a new and sterile product is very intricate and requires many steps to accomplish. From washing to shredding and of course quality control, the life of a plastic bottle is anything but boring.

Australias Process For Recycling Water Bottles

Even though Australia is planning on improving their local recycling management, the main majority of our plastic is shipped off to locations overseas for recycling purposes. Originally our plastic was being sent to China however, this slowly became too much for them and they had to decline shipments. As of late, China has opened up to receiving plastic again but isn’t certain yet. To some, plastic might seem like rubbish, but to these processing plants, our recycled plastic material (like water bottles) is an amazing resource. So let’s break down the recycled plastic water bottles' life?

For Australia’s end of the trade, they are in charge of collecting all their plastic bottle and transforming it into a more manageable form for the overseas plants. To achieve this all the plastic bottles are shredded up into tiny plastic chunks. Thanks to this, all of the liquid that was trapped inside and had accumulated can now be drained out. All that is left is to package up all the shredded pieces up into piles and ship it overseas.

How Processing Plants Turns Your Recycling Into A Valuable Product

Recycling processing plants are efficient with the plastic they use and can turn what was once a product from bottled water suppliers into a very useful object. These objects can consist of materials like Polyester for popular fashion products or clean reusable plastic that can be turned back into bottles or containers.

First, the shredded plastic needs to be washed and cleaned. For the most part, this is to separate both the caps as well as the labels from the plastic shards but it also helps to clean off liquid residue that solidified during the waiting. After this process, the plastic is sent into an acid bath as that is the best method to remove any stickers placed on the bottles. Now all that is left is perfect clean plastic shards to be processed further.

The processing plants then place the plastic into a drill that will heat up to extreme temperatures so that they can create larger moulds of plastic. This end product is weak however so stretching and then combining it with itself using a dough-like kneading process is how the original strength can be recreated and thus achieving an end result.

Future Plans For Australia’s Water Bottles

As more overseas processing plants are beginning to reduce their import of plastic, like how China is, the Australian government is looking for other alternatives for recycling plastic. The best method is to create a closed-loop factory which focuses on cleaning and turning old plastic bottles into new and sanitised bottles. The only waste from this procedure is the labels and lids, creating a semi-perfect recycling result. This is achieved through a very similar process that oversea processing plants use and is already being accomplished in factories within Australia.