What Happens to the Recycled Items in the Recycling Bins?

You could be wearing it right now. It could be at your child's school playground, in your home theater system or on your family's deck. While they look like ordinary cans, newspapers and bottles when they leave your recycling bin, recyclable products have a long journey and many uses to fulfill once your part of the process is done.

Breaking up Is Hard to Do

Glass bottles and jars are the only recyclable material that does not wear down over time. After it leaves your house, though, it must be carefully separated from other types of glass, like crystal, glass dishes and windows, as they have different compositions and can result in defective products. The next stop is the glass plant, where it's crushed into tiny pieces called cullet, which is smooth enough to serve as a sand substitute in construction. Your local indoor track, playground or structures built with bricks could contain recycled glass as a chief component.

More Than Paper Thin

Because people recycle paper in such high volumes, a paper dealer is typically the middleman between the recycling truck and the paper mill, whom the dealer eventually sells it to. At the paper mill, it goes through a process called de-inking, where it's chemically cleaned to get rid of ink residue and markings. Once it's clean, the paper material is mixed with wood chips to create a thick substance called pulp, which runs through a machine to get rid of dirt and remaining ink. The pulp is then flattened and dried to create the foundation for new office paper and newspaper.

A Crushing Blow to Wastefulness

After they're recycled, it usually takes only two months for aluminum cans to be filled with your favorite soda or soup and returned to store shelves. That's because recyclables make aluminum manufacturing 95 percent more efficient than using brand new resources. Recycling centers compact aluminum cans together, then ship them off to be processed into smaller pieces to make new materials. While most commonly used for new cans and cooking foil, recycled aluminum is used to construct airplanes, electronics and bikes.

Plastic: Versatile, Flexible

Not all plastics are created equal. PET 1, the type of plastic used in soda and water bottles, is of a higher quality than HDPE 2, which is used to make milk bottles and containers for household cleaners. The two types are separated, then sent to a recycling plant to be shredded and made into plastic sheets for new products. HDPE 2 is often used to construct playground equipment and plastic deck lumber, and the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District reports that just five plastic soda bottles can become the lining for a winter jacket.

About the Author


Photo Credits

  • Jeffrey Hamilton/Digital Vision/Getty Images