How are plastic recycled? What are the uses of this recycled plastic?
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Answer:
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the material into useful products. ... The two most widely manufactured plastics, polypropylene and polyethylene, behave this way, which limits their utility for recycling.
Broadly, there are two major ways to recycle plastic:[10] (1) mechanical recycling ("chop and wash"[11]), where the plastic is washed, ground into powders and melted, and (2) chemical recycling, where the plastic is broken down into basic components.
Before recycling, most plastics are sorted according to their resin type. In the past, plastic reclaimers used the resin identification code (RIC), a method of categorization of polymer types, which was developed by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988.[citation needed] Polyethylene terephthalate, commonly referred to as PET, for instance, has a resin code of 1. Most plastic reclaimers do not rely on the RIC now; they use various sorting systems to identify the resin, ranging from manual sorting and picking of plastic materials to mechanized automation processes that involve shredding, sieving, separation by rates of density i.e. air, liquid, or magnetic, and complex spectrometer distribution technologies e.g. UV/VIS, NIR, Laser, etc.[12] Some plastic products are also separated by color before they are recycled.
After sorting, for mechanical recycling the plastic recyclables are then shredded. These shredded fragments then undergo processes to eliminate impurities like paper labels. This material is melted and often extruded into the form of pellets which are then used to manufacture other products. The highest quality purification may be referred to as "regeneration".