There’s no doubt about the reasons we want to recycle plastic. We all need to contribute to keeping our planet alive, instead of piling it up with a whole bunch of bottles, bags, glasses, and other plastic waste.

But let us first clarify what exactly we call recycling, and try to explore the definition:

The essence.

We refer to this method when we talk about transforming nonbiodegradable used plastic into something useful and eco-friendly. That includes different projects you can dive into, such as participating in recycling plastic collabs, working spaces, or building recycling machines yourself. It’s really amazing we can use and reuse plastic, have fun, and be creative at the same time. Would it be for indoor planters, supply boxes, coffee cups, or watering cans – it’s your choice.

Big brands, such as Persil, do invest in recycling plastic at home, involve young people, and create whole communities of changemakers to be a part of a big academy. The initiative is hosted by National Geographic Kids and counts its champions in recycling plastic on a daily basis.

Worldwide, there’s a full pack of guides, videos, and tutorials to help you every step of the way.  There’s even an online shop for shredders, extrusion, injection, and compression machines to easily use at home.

The ultimate principle is one and the same – you heat the plastic, melt it and then shape it in the way you desire.

But to illustrate better why you’d better practice recycling plastic at home, we want to share a piece of statistics:

Ultimately, we produce 300 metric tonnes of plastic every day and recycle only 10 % of them. Plus we use it for making plastic valuable resources, such as fossil fuel, which we’re actually running out of. Considering it’s quickly tossed in the garbage, that’s not very smart.

The word comes from the Greek ‘plastikos’ and means able to be moulded or shaped. Plastics are purely synthetic, extracted from petroleum, and made of hydrocarbons (chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms). Most of them are polymers, easy to produce and cheap to manufacture, but with a slow decomposition rate, of approximately 500 years. To keep the cost as low, as it can be, organic or inorganic compounds called additives are being blended in.

The purpose

It’s no surprise recycling plastic can actually be a good business. For example, in 2014 Australians earned nearly 730 million USD from recycling bottles. Thus, they supported the local economy by creating local recycling jobs and raising their income. So, besides the reduction of waste, recycling plastic decreases effects on the environment and even saves money.

The process

When you decide to recycle plastic at home, you have to learn the basic step this process goes through:

  • Collecting

That includes you gather different plastic products on a daily basis, which are then sent to recycling and packed into plastic processing plants.

  • Sorting 

This one is usually undertaken, but pretty important, due to the removal of all pollutants. They sort plastic by resin and color and the recycling mill sort out the plastic scrap by symbols at the bottom of the plastic.

Unfortunately, not all plastics are able to recycle. While some of them are ready to be picked from the household and put in the process this instant, others may require additional actions.

Different recycling companies recycle different types of plastic, depending on their sorting facilities. You can easily check what kerbside collections are available in your region, given the circumstance they are numerous recycling centers across the UK.

The most commonly recycled plastics are:

1 – Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) – water bottles and food trays

2 – High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) – milk boxes and shampoo bottles

5 – Polypropylene (PP) – margarine tubs

Semi-recyclable plastics (at specialist facilities) include:

3 – Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) – piping

4 – Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) – bags

6 – Polystyrene (PS) – cutlery

Incredibly hard-to-recycle plastics include crisp packets, salad bags, plastic wraps, and more. It’s also important not to mix different types of plastic, as they have different melting temperatures and you may decrease the quality of the new product.

Ready. Set. Recycle plastic!

Now that you know all the basics, you can start to recycle plastic at home. You can be creative designers of your own, preserving plastic to be just thrown in nature, or be a part of some recycling structure, only by gathering it separately into specific recycling containers.

When climate change strikes again, it’s time for us to do something about it.  Thus, we can change the situation we’re about to live in. That’s why educating yourself on how to recycle plastic at home is so important.