Compared to glass or metallic materials, plastic poses unique challenges – because of the massive number of types of plastic, they each carry a resin identification code, and must be sorted before they can be recycled.
While metals can be sorted using electromagnets, no such 'easy sorting' capability exists for plastics. As a consequence, the waste needs to be sorted by hand, which is a costly and time-consuming process. In addition, while labels do not need to be removed from bottles for recycling, lids are often made from a different kind of non-recyclable plastic.
So what happens to your plastic waste after it has been sorted, graded, and bailed in ARC?
It is sent off to other companies and it will either be melted down, shredded or granulated.
After this has been completed there are many products made from the recycled plastic such as:
Did you know, the UK produces 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year!
Of this, approximately 85% is dumped into landfill, 8% is incinerated and just 7% is recycled.
Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.
It takes just 25 two litre pop bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket.
150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each week —they can take up to 500 years to decay in landfill.