PET Plastic: Saving Money and Energy with Reclaimed Plastic
Current conditions have been different from those a decade ago. The price of raw materials to make desired products has skyrocketed, and the involvement in recycling as well as concerns about energy security and global warming has now weighed more heavily in the debate when it comes to PET plastic bottles.
Recycling is back as it saves landfill space, conserves resources used in the making of PET plastic bottles, that would otherwise be piling up in the landfill space. It makes a huge difference to our environment saving energy as well as water, our quality of life, and our future.
How can recycling PET plastic bottles save money and energy?
Recycling is the extraction of materials that can be recovered and reused for multiple items ranging from packaging, fabrics, films, molded parts of automotive, and many more. The process of recycling is a whole another story. However, most of the plastic ends up incinerated or landfilled because of the massively complicated system of separating and sorting the different kinds. With different types of plastics, ranging from recyclable to non-recyclable, reusable to non-reusable, making it more difficult to sort and reprocess than other recyclable materials.
The easiest way to understand it is by putting it in this way: everything we throw in the trash will end up buried in a landfill. While people enthusiastic about recycling might be separating different recyclables from each other, however, the trash is not currently separated into different recyclable materials. Reducing the waste and reusing what we already have is always a better option rather than remaking the whole thing. It helps us to save resources, for instance, plastics come from oil. So when we decide to reclaim the plastic, we don’t have to necessarily extract or mine to collect the raw material used in the process to make things we use every day.
Mini liquor bottles or soft-drink bottles made from PET also known as polyethylene terephthalate, are reclaimed to manufacture packaging products such as clothing, carpets, plastic lumber, or furniture. PET is one of the most common plastic materials that is reclaimed each year and resold to manufacturers and suppliers of plastic products each year. It is possible to make new PET bottles from the recycled stock.
Recycled plastic PET bottles:
From manufacturers using recycled plastics to consumers contributing to recycling the products they use, only combined efforts can make a huge difference down the road. The more we recycle, the less garbage ends up in the landfill and incineration plants, the greater the positive impact can be. It comes down to one person taking action, we can save production and energy costs as well as reduce the negative impacts that extraction and processing of virgin materials have on the environment.
PET plastic is a recyclable and reusable material that is universally recognized as a safe and non-toxic material worldwide. This material is best known for its flexible and durable properties and the clear packaging it provides. Plus, to identify PET the process is quite easier, the bottles carry the #1 code which no other plastic carries, found on the bottom side of the container. To name a few of its properties, it is highly flexible, colorless, and semi-crystalline resin when it is in its natural state. Depending on how much it is processed during the recycling process, it can range from semi-rigid to rigid.
