Recycling is a process that reuses plastic or plastic scraps, processing and modelling it in to new usable items, many times in to completely different products. Usually one type of plastic is never recycled in to the same type of plastic, and recycled plastics do not go into the recycling process twice. Usually plastic products can be recycled and mixed together only if they are made from same type of plastic materials, otherwise the quality will be very low and the recycled product will brake and fell apart. Many times in the recycling process different additives are used to make the product stronger and more durable. Additives are widely used in plastic bags and drinks containers which make them practical and recycled over and over again.
There are many process used for recycling plastics, but before these processes the items have to be sorted by type in order to be reformed in recycled plastics. In order to be used for recycled plastics the plastic containers and items must have a resin identification code, which is a sign that is printed or stamped on the bottom of the items and surrounded by a triangle of arrows. This sign makes the items easily recognised and people would know if they can be used for recycled plastics. After sorting out the items intended for recycled plastics, the process of recycling can include different methods like thermal depolymerisation, heat compression, monomer recycling and other processes. Some of these processes are cheaper to perform and allow usage of different recycled plastics to be mixed together.
Monomer recycling process is the most expensive one and it is not widely used. Thermal depolymerisation is much cheaper process for producing recycled plastics, in which all kinds of polymer and polymeric mixes are acceptable even old rubber tyres or even agricultural waste. One pilot plant I Missouri, USA, is using turkey waste as input material for recycled plastics.
Heat compression is probably the most common recycling process because it is the cheapest one and can use and mix different recycled plastics, plastic waste, plastic bags, even hard industrial waste. All these recycled plastic items are mixed into huge tumblers and melted in to a polymeric material that is used for recycled plastic products and items. This process is questioned because it uses a lot of electricity to turn the tumblers and the heating pipes used for heating and melting of the plastic. Recycling plastic is spread around the world mostly in highly developed countries, but even there the level of recycling plastic is not on such a high level as the usage of plastic. The awareness for recycling plastic and usage of glass and recycled plastic items should be elevated by educational promotions in order to raise the people consciousness for recycling.
