Plastic
is one of the most popular, and misunderstood, materials that the Recycling
Center takes. There are so many
different kinds of plastic used for so many different things that people get
confused easily about what they can recycle and what they can’t. In an effort to help people quickly identify
which type of plastic a product is made with, a number of years ago the
plastics industry designed a 7 digit identification code and encouraged
manufacturers to use this code on their products by stamping a recycling
triangle with a number in it somewhere on the product.
The Recycling Center has
developed specific markets for plastic recycling and we are required to meet
certain market specifications. For
example - #1 plastic is called PET which is short for polyethylene
terephthalate. There are lots of different types of #1 plastic products on the market and all of them share certain
basic characteristics. However,
different applications require different formulas that are not always what our
markets can use. PET plastic can be
used to make fabric to make T-shirts, long underwear, athletic shoes, luggage,
upholstery, sweaters, fiberfill for sleeping bags and winter coats, industrial
strapping, automotive parts, such as luggage racks, headliners, fuse boxes,
bumpers, grilles and door panels as well as new PET containers for both food
and non-food products. The product most
often made with PET plastic in Georgia is carpet.
We ship our #1 PET plastic bottles and jars to one of two
local companies that use the bottles to manufacture carpet. In their
manufacturing process, they grind up the bottles into flakes and then wash them
to remove contaminants like labels, the glue used to attach the labels and the
caps and cap rings. Then the bottles
are heated up and turned into a liquid.
This hot liquid is then pushed out of tiny tubes and when the liquid
plastic hits the cooler air it hardens into a tiny thread. These threads are spun together to make a
yarn that is then used to make the carpet.
These companies only want the #1 plastic used in making bottles and jars
for their process. Other products made
from PET plastic, like food take out containers, have formulas that don’t work
well in their manufacturing process so they are considered contaminants. This
is why we only put the #1 plastic bottles and jars into our system for
recycling. Even though some other
products have that recycling triangle with a #1 in it are made from the PET
type plastic, they have additional characteristics that exclude them from the
carpet making process. While this may seem somewhat limiting, approximately 90%
of the household #1 plastic products are food and drink bottles and jars so we
are actually recycling the bulk of this type of plastic.
As you know, these plastic containers are quite strong and
when their lids are on tight they are quite difficult to crush. This is one of the things that makes them so
popular in the drink bottling industry.
However, this also makes these bottles difficult for the Recycling
Center to process effectively. We send
all of our plastics through our baler in order to condense the plastic for shipping
and when the caps are on the bottles they are quite difficult to condense. This is one reason we ask people to please
remove the caps from the bottles before recycling these containers. Also,
removing the caps before recycling generally means emptying the contents and
this really makes a big difference at our facility, particularly in hot
weather. The liquid left in the
bottles, usually soft drinks, attracts all sorts of undesirable insects (wasps,
ants, etc.) that make life difficult for our workers. This is the second reason we ask people to remove the caps from
the bottles and rinse them before recycling.
If you have any questions or comments, please call Marta
Turner at the Rome/Floyd Recycling Center at 291-5266 or e mail her at
rfrecycl@roman.net. Please visit the
Recycling Center’s website for more information on all aspects of recycling – www.romefloydrecycles.org.