Plastic

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Reuse

• Drink containers
• Ziploc bags
• Tupperware
• Plastic grocery bags

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Reduce

• Packaging
• Diapers
• Grocery Bags
• Lunch bags
• Make products last longer
• Precycling do I really need this?

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Recycle

• Primary
• Closed loop
• Creates products of the same type
• Secondary
• Open loop
• Converted into new
• products

http//www.recyclebank.com/recycling
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Compost

• Rich in organic matter and soil nutrients
• Microorganisms break down waste

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MRFs materials recovery facility

• Separates trash from materials that can be
  recycled
• Recycles or burns remaining combustible waste
• Problems
• Expensive
• Energy to separate trash
• Must have large input of garbage
• Toxic pollutants

http//www.recyclebank.com/recycling
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Source separation

• Separate trash from recyclables at home or
  business
• Advantages
• Little pollution
• Moderate operating costs and more jobs
• Less energy
• Problems
• Rely on people to correctly separate
• Hard to compete with MRFs

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Plastics
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Versatility

• Flexible or rigid transparent or opaque.
• Look like leather, wood, or silk.
• Made into toys or heart valves.
• The basic raw materials for plastic are petroleum
  and/or natural gas.
• These fossil fuels are sometimes combined with
  other elements, such as oxygen or chlorine, to
  make different types of plastic.

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What to do with my soda bottle?

• Throw it in the trash (Landfill)
• Recycle it and reuse it!
• Incinerate it for energy

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1 PET  Polyethylene Terephthalate

• Two-liter beverage bottles, mouthwash bottles,
  boil-in-bag pouches.

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2 HDPE  High Density Polyethylene

• Milk jugs, trash bags, detergent bottles.

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3 PVC Polyvinyl Chloride

• Cooking oil bottles, packaging around meat
• Burning PVC plastic, which contains 57 chlorine
  when pure, forms dioxins, a highly toxic group of
  chemicals that build up in the food chain.

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4 LDPE  Low Density Polyethylene

• Grocery bags, produce bags, food wrap, bread bags

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5 PP  Polypropylene

• Yogurt containers, shampoo bottles, straws,
  margarine tubs, diapers.

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6 PS  Polystyrene 

• Hot beverage cups, take-home boxes, egg cartons,
  meat trays, cd cases.

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7 Other

• All other types of plastics or packaging made
  from more than one type of plastic.

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Not Economical

• In recent years, several plastics recycling
  companies have closed their doors.
• They claimed they could not sell their products
  at a price that would allow them to stay in
  business.
• Thanks to the relatively low cost of petroleum,
  the price of virgin plastic is so inexpensive
  that recycled plastic cannot compete.
• The price of virgin resin is about 40 percent
  lower than that of recycled resin.

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Paper or Plastic?

• 20-40 less E to manufacture plastic
• 1 truckload of plastic 7 truckloads of paper

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Plastic Energy!

• Stored energy - made from fossil fuels.
• Contain as much energy as petroleum or natural
  gas
• much more energy than other types of garbage.
• an ideal fuel for waste-to-energy plants.

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• Because recycled plastic is more expensive,
  people arent exactly lining up to buy it.
  Surveys conducted by Procter Gamble and others
  show that while most people expect their plastic
  to be recycled, they wont go out of their way or
  pay a few cents more to buy a bottle made of
  recycled plastic. Recyclers say plastics
  recycling wont be profitable until we close the
  loop by creating more demand for recycled
  plastics.