Recycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate Essay

Overall, recycling plastic benefits the environment, the economy and the future of America. Although there are flaws to recycling plastic such as the sorting step overlooking additives and the washing step leaving some impurities, technological advances and more labor will be needed to fix those drawbacks in order to conserve the environment. Therefore, the U. S government should mandate recycling so that the recycling rate increase. Through this action, America will gain the benefits of recycling plastic. In addition, Americans should recycle specific types of plastic such as PET and HDPE as those two are the most commonly accepted by recycling programs. This will be strenuous upon Americans because they will have to do more work however,

Recycling is reusing materials like paper, plastics, and glass, breaking them down and turning them into a new product. This way no materials get wasted and not as many resources are used up for new products. There are many ways to dispose of waste, in this case plastics; incineration, landfilling, biodegradation and recycling. Incineration is effective however creates negative environmental risks and health risks by releasing different harmful gases. Landfilling requires space and many chemicals and energy in plastics are lost in disposal routes. Biodegradable plastics may not degrade fast enough to avoid a build of plastics and to help the environment. Recycling plastics is time consuming and plastics must be sorted through by the types of

We use some sort of PET merchandise every day. “Polyethylene Terephthalate is a strong, lightweight plastic resin and form of polyester that closely resembles glass in clarity .... PET is commonly used in food packaging due to its strong barrier properties against water vapor… PET is also shatter-resistant, slightly flexible and easy to recycle” (Alpha). As stated above we use PET in everything that you can think of. If you have a bottle around you, look at the bottom, if it says 1 in

America is one of the largest countries along with being one of the largest waste producers in the world. In 2013 Americans generated about 254 million tons of ("Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2013 Fact Sheet"). So where does all of this trash go? Approximately 55% of 220 million tons of waste generated each year in the United States ends up in one of the over 3500 landfills ("Center for Sustainability & Commerce"). This trash that ends up in the landfill consist of metals, steel and aluminum can, plastic bottles, and paper along with other miscellaneous items. The issue with this is that the majority of these items will never decompose and just sit in the ground forever. While other items like paper will eventually decompose there is still a better alternative than putting it into a landfill. This alternative is known as recycling. What can we recycle? What can the average family do to recycle more? Where does trash end up if it is not properly thrown away or recycled? What is the impact of the improperly disposed trash on our environment? What can the government do to help?

Americans make more than 200 million tons of garbage each year, enough to fill Busch Stadium from top to bottom twice a day, that’s over 1800 feet! according to Ballparks. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 75% of the American waste stream is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it says Do Something. With the invention of the virtually indestructible material well known as plastic, on top of the rapidly evolving technological world, and the extreme reduction of locations where landfills can be built, it’s hard to believe that 75% of the waste stream in America alone is recyclable, and yet only 30% of it is actually recycled. Recycling is a beneficial solution to many of our increasingly important environmental

They do not, in fact, mean that an item can be recycled, but specifically denote which kind of plastic makes up an object. There are six codes for specific plastics, with code number seven being something of a “catch-all” for the remaining plastics and composites. Only four of these seven codes denote a plastic that can be recycled at all, and it is relatively rare for an area to recycle all four of them. Despite the efforts to simplify the process of recycling, we still waste massive amounts of recyclable material. We have improved tremendously compared to previous decades. Nationally the USA went from recycling 6.4% of solid waste in 1960 to recycling 34.1% of waste in 2010 - but we still have a very long way to go (“Stats”). These statistics beg the question “what impact have the Resin ID codes truly had on recycling?” In an effort to discern if there has in fact been a significant impact on our recycling rates, I set out to research the overall changes in recycling since these the implementation of these

Before 2007 it was not possible to recycle plastic bottles into new plastic bottles and the recyclability was limited to what they could be recycled into. From 2007 however due to a process called depolymerisation plastic bottles can now be processed into new

BPA can be found in plastics assigned with the recycle number of 7 and the lining of canned goods. Products of this designation number usually appear as clear and hard plastics, which represent most of our stuff in the kitchen—bottles, containers, disposable utensils, etc. Besides bisphenol A, there are other types of phthalates, chemicals used as softening agents for manufacturing soft plastics that are identified as endocrine disrupters. Endocrine disrupters have been studied for decades in order to find links between the chemicals and negative health effects. Though not all materials contain either BPA or phthalates, some types of plastics are still as dangerous as those made with the chemical.

Plastic is everywhere. People use it every day, in everything. There is no possible way to live 100% without plastic in this day and age. Plastic is made with natural oils. Monomers form when molecules connect together, then chain up to create Polymers. When this happens, it creates the substance everyone knows of -- plastic. Plastic is polluting the ocean and contaminating our drinking water, but at the same time plastic has proven to be convenient and versatile for our everyday use.

Since the 1900s, Americans realized the amount of waste they produce and the damage which comes along with it. Recycling is seen as a simple process to the average person. Items such as glass, plastics, aluminum, and paper are placed on the curb and or dropped off at recycling centers. However, many lack knowledge as to where their products go after this step. The recycling process is intricate, but crucial towards improving our environment.

Recycling is one of the many ways to decrease landfill use. Some people believe we shouldn’t recycle, while other people think we should use it more. Recycling should be practiced more and is more effective because it lowers the amount of chemicals emitted, you get lots of useful recycled materials, and it provides many jobs for people in the United States.

The soda bottle is all to common today. It is made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a durable yet a feather light product. PET is used in many diverse products, such as polyester fabric, cable wraps, films, transformer insulation, generator parts, and packaging. It contributes to about 6.4 percent of the packaging industry and 14 percent of plastic containers, including but not at all limited to the common soft drink bottle. Making up for 43 percent of those sold, PET is the mostly used soda drink container. Aluminum, comes in second with 34 percent, while glass, which used to be the sole and only contender, is now only a petite percentage of the material used for bottling.

If you look around yourself you may notice that a great amount of the things around you are made up of plastic. You may also notice that all these plastic objects are different. For example, some are more durable while others are more delicate. There are many different types of plastics that exist; different plastics are used for different things. Polypropylene is a very common plastic, one that in some way, shape or form, we likely use everyday. According to a Britannica article, polypropylene is “a synthetic resin built up by the polymerization of propylene” (Britannica, 2016). What this really means is that polypropylene is a synthetic compound made up of propylene that goes through the process of polymerization, which is when monomers are

Americans generated 33 million tons of plastics in 2013, about 13 percent of the waste stream. Only nine percent of plastics were recycled in 2013. Some types of plastics are recycled much more than others. Most community recycling programs accept some, but not all, types of plastics. Look for products made from recycled plastic materials. ( How Do I Recycled Common Recyclable. one of the important benefits

We know that nowadays plastic is the one materials that widely used by human in all of the country. Most of our goods become from plastic. The bad news is, plastics wastes that come from our unusable goods end up in the oceans. There are 60% to 80% plastic wastes on the sea are coming from the land and it will cause a big problem to 267 sea species in this world (Moore, Lattin, & Zellers). That one example is more than enough to start recycling our plastic waste. We can start from reduce and reuse first. For reduce example: when we buy something, we should prepare our own bag to put the goods we buy, dispose the waste according to the bin that specially provided for plastic, use a refill bottle for our drink bottle, and prefer a paper bag than plastic bag. How about reuse plastic bag? Some of countries have creative company that selling fine art and use plastic waste as the basic materials. One of the countries that have company like that is Indonesia. Indonesia has a lot of home industry that use plastic waste as their main materials. They make new thing from plastic bottle, such as plastic flower art, windmill toys for children, table lamp, and house accessories. Some schools in Indonesia teach the students how to reuse the plastic waste and make a fine art from it. Reduce and reuse the plastic waste already counted as recycling the plastic waste. Never think