Plastic waste is one of the main causes for intense soil and water pollution. Plastic recycling is considered as one of the advantageous solution to the increased plastic waste in environment. Plastic recycling is the method of disintegrating (breaking down into pieces) the scrap and wastes of plastic to retrieve useful materials for manufacturing industry. After several resins and chemical structures in plastic are melted during recycling process, new fibers can be developed. Recycling of outdated plastic products requires lesser energy (20%-40%) than manufacturing original plastic products.
Harmful effects of plastic:
- Some Plastic materials are non-biodegradable
- Plastic materials kills animals
- Plastic bags mess up the picture of landscape
- As Petroleum is used in production of plastic bags, it causes pollution.
Benefits of recycling plastic to environment:
- Leads to oil conservation: Recycling of plastic helps in saving four barrels of oil. As the oil prices are soaring day by day, the prices of basic needs of people like food, gas, products and other commodities (having oil as important element) is also increasing. So, recycling of plastic is preferred as it consumes less oil compared to manufacturing of original plastic materials.
- Greenhouse gas emissions can be decreased: As the number of steps involved in recycling of plastic is less, it consumes less energy and creates less pollution. So, green house gases are less emitted.
- Helps in conserving our energy: Recycling of plastic requires less energy. It saves twelve thousand BTUs (British Thermal Unit) when one pound of PET bottles are recycled.
- Landfills can be recovered: Today, one of the important problems being faced is, there are no landfills (place to dump plastic waste) as all of them are filled. An effective solution for this is to reduce dumping of plastic waste into landfills and go for recycling.
Applications of recycled plastic:
Products made from recycled plastic are Polyethylene bin liners, carrier bags, PVC sewer pipes, flooring, window frames, building insulation board, video and compact disc cassette cases, fencing, garden furniture, water butts, garden sheds, composters, seed trays, anoraks, fleeces, fibre filling for sleeping bags and duvets, variety of office accessories.
Though recycling is good method, it is a complicated procedure. As it involves more tedious labor for sorting plastic wastes according to color and type and more over, as the worth of material is very less, it is not profitable. However, it is preferred method as 25% of dumping ground can be recovered, if plastic materials are recycled. We can reduce oil (non-renewable source) consumption, as manufacturing of original plastic involves huge amount of petroleum. Study on recycling of plastic revealed that 1.8 tonnes of oil is saved for every one tonne of polythene recycled. Water usage in manufacturing original plastic is 90% more than water used in the process of recycling plastic. So, recycling of plastic is good strategy to guard our environment from pollution and to save non-renewable sources.
