Plastic Bottles, Recycling and Plastic Welding

Do you recycle? Most of us probably have a recycle bin in our garage right? We have two bins and most of the time; both bins are full when the recycle guys come in our neighborhood to collect them. We are encourage to recycle for so many reasons:

One is to prevent waste of potentially useful materials such as plastics, papers, glass, metal and soda cans;
To reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials;
To reduce energy usage;
To reduce air pollution and water pollution;
To lower greenhouse gas emissions and may more possible reasons.

All of us should recycle because it is the key for waste reduction. Isn't it nice and healthy to live in a green and clean environment? When we recycle, we reduce the garbage thrown in the landfill and some people/company can re-use them.

Few months back, I saw a documentary in UK showing the plastic bottle being recycled and made into an outer wear material. It was pretty impressive. In the Philippines, a TV company collected plastic bottles from the viewers and recycled them to make classroom chairs.

The making of clothing using the plastic bottle is interesting. The plastic bottle that was collected was being process at the plastic bottle recycling center. The first stage is shredding then, shipped to the textile industry around the globe. The shredded plastic bottles will be sorted out separating the white from colored then; it will take a bath to strain the stickers from the shredded plastic bottles. It was a complicated process but, after the plastic spend hours inside the rotating drum; they transferred the plastic to a rotating machine. It came out like a thread and heat again to make polyester. Seeing such documentary film was really impressive. The recycling process is hard to accomplish without the help of machine innovation.

The plastic manufacturing industry is successful because of the tools and machines such as spin welding and plastic welding. The invention of these machines made the job done easy. I saw a video in you tube showing a plastic placed at the bottom. They use the spin welding machine and the frictional heat joins the two parts. The plastic at the top is spun at high speeds against the plastic at the bottom.

Anyway, check out the video in you tube for visual understanding on how these machines work well. For more information, visit the links above as well.