Feature

Recycling plastic bottles

By 2010-05-01T11:43:00

Bales of compacted cans

Source: iStock

Recycling plastic bottles prevents the plastic from going to landfill, saves energy and reduces our dependency on oil. But what do we have to do to put the bottle back on the supermarket shelf?

Separating all the different types of plastic is just one of many challenges facing the recycling industry… A tiny black speck in a recycled PET bottle will weaken it so much it could explode when filled with fizzy drink, and just one PVC bottle in a batch of 10 000 PET bottles could ruin the entire batch. A complicated business, thankfully chemistry has helped to put that bottle back on the supermarket shelf.

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