RECYCLING

• WHAT ARE THE TWO TYPES OF RECYCLING?

  mechanical or feedstock
• WHAT IS THE SIMPLEST FORM OF RECYCLING?

  mechanical
• PROCESS OF MECHANICAL RECYCLING?

  1. Separate different types of plastic
  2. Wash and sort
  3. Ground up into small pellets
  4. Melt
  5. Remould
• EXAMPLE OF MECHANICAL RECYCLING?

  recycled soft drinks bottles made from PET used to make fleece clothes
• PROCESS OF FEEDSTOCK RECYCLING?

  1. Plastics heated to temperature that breaks polymer bonds
  2. Producing monomers
• WHAT ARE THE ISSUES WITH FEEDSTOCK RECYCLING?

  • thermoplastic polymers soften when heated
  • can be melted and re-used
  • but only a limited number of times
  • as the chains break and become smaller
• EXAMPLE OF A THERMOPLASTIC POLYMER?

  polypropene