There was a time when the word “plastic” spoke of modern ingenuity.  Plastics have made an array of commodities more affordable and longer lasting. But in the past few years it’s become a dirty word as plastic pollution increases, particularly in marine environments. The volume of plastic we use in a single day makes recycling even more important, not just for environmental health, but for local industry as well. North Carolina is home to several industries who depend on plastic feedstock for their products.

Most of us understand that when we recycle office paper it gets made into new paper, and it makes sense that recycled steel cans are made into new cans. But what happens to all those water bottles that get recycled and how does it happen?

First, let’s talk about plastic bags which are recycled separately from other plastics. They don’t go in the bin with the bottles; take them to the grocery store instead. They will be recycled into many new items such as plastic lumber, decking, fences and new plastic bags.

Detergent bottles and containers like milk jugs and shampoo bottles are tough and made into different items than beverage bottles. The heavier plastics can be recycled into plastic lumber, picnic tables, recycling bins, lawn furniture, playground equipment, and more.

Plastic drink bottles are typically turned into plastic fiber for t-shirts, sweaters, fleece pullovers, insulation for jackets and sleeping bags, carpeting, and more beverage bottles. It takes about 10 bottles to create enough plastic fiber to make one t-shirt and 63 bottles to make a sweater.

There are two basic methods of processing recycled plastic, the mechanical “chop and wash” method where the bottles are cut up, cleaned, ground into powder, heated up and spun into fiber or injected into molds.  The second is the chemical process of breaking plastic down into monomers, which are molecules that can react with other monomer molecules to form larger polymer chains.

Still, even with manufactures using recycled plastic to make a host of new materials, it represents only a fraction of the plastic made every single day.  One statistic shows that 91% of all plastic ever created have not been recycled. Instead, it is burned, buried or floats in our oceans, and by 2050 plastic is expected to outnumber fish.