Plastic recycling and the impact on the environment

Article by Richard Coppin

Plastic recycling is the new environmental policy trend in communities across the nation. Last year, a statewide law went into effect in California to provide at-store plastic bag recycling in every community. Plastic recycling is now greatly expanded. Products and empty containers labeled with resin codes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are now acceptable. Plastic recycling is relatively new and has a growing infrastructure. In addition, weather (wind, rain, snow, and even sun) in Summit County makes recycling plastic bags extremely difficult as they must be dry to be shipped and are easily blown away.Plastic recycling is very fast developing field of recycling. The post consumer items made from PET and HDPE resins have found reliable markets. Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products. Compared to glass or metallic materials, plastic poses unique challenges?because of the massive number of types of plastic, they each carry a resin identification code, and must be sorted before they can be recycled.Greenpeace and other organizations have documented conditions at recycling facilities in countries that import this material and have found conditions to be hazardous and exploitive. In addition, Greenpeace found that exported plastics were very poorly sorted. Green Building Council to develop the store and is planning to build others like it. Greenpeace says embracing the three Rs – reduce, re-use and recycle – would help tackle the problem. Plastic recycling is lagging well behind paper and cardboard.Types of plastics are assigned a number, called a resin identification code, which is usually stamped or printed on the bottom of containers and surrounded by a recycling symbol (a triangle of arrows). Many programs exist in the United States and the reduction of weight in numerous packaging applications has been significant over the last 25 years. Type 4 is less commonly recycled. The other types are generally not recycled, except perhaps in small test programs.PVC cannot easily be mixed with other plastics for recycling because it releases toxic additives when melted down. PVC has a low melt point and produces acidic by-products when it burns. They are the most valuable plastics, but unsuitable to our application.

About the Author

Hi I’m Richard Coppin, I enjoy wriring about a varied number of subjects. I;ve submitted a few articles about the environemtn recently. Why not visit my web site http://www.environment-green.com and find out more a bout plastic recycling visit http://www.environment-green.com/Plastic_Recycling.html

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Product Description
“This book adds much to the already evolving field of Design for Environment; but it goes far beyond most works on this subject by surrounding the central notions of life cycle assessment with a scientific body of knowledge and with a more practical slant reflecting the reality of the organizations in which product development occurs. Through a focus on plastic products, the authors show the importance of making ties between basic technical knowledge and the process of life cycle engineering. Their approach offers a practical, deliberate way to make ecologically and economically sensible decisions about product reuse and recycling and other critical dimensions of product life behavior. They demonstrate a positive approach to designing products that fits into a sustainable economy through down-to-earth cases. While the book focuses on the life cycle engineering of plastics, it is only a short step to other materials and products.

Beyond contributing to the technology of life cycle engineering, this text adds to the growing body of knowledge that argues for an fundamentally new way of thinking about economic and social activity–a new paradigm for sustainable social and industrial problem solving. Industrial ecology is such a new system for thinking about and implementing sustainability that draws its core set of ideas from the ecological world. Industrial ecology brings to the surface the idea of interdependence among members of a community– natural or economic, and notes the material cycles that are central to a stable ecosystem. The life cycle engineering framework, coupled with sound scientific knowledge of materials behavior as articulated in this book, makes a giant step towards bringing the model of industrial ecology into everyday practice.”

From the Preface by John R. Ehrenfeld

Director, MIT Technology, Business and Environment Program

Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development

Life Cycle Engineering of Plastics: Technology, Economy and Environment

Scrap metal starts out life as any other metal material. It is built for a purpose and is often reserved for that specific use, be it in building or construction, machinery, technology or agriculture, where it will remain forever more in an ideal world. However, what happens when that machine breaks down, or the building is demolished to make way for some newer construction project? The metal from there becomes scrap, unwanted and many look to simply get rid of it out of their hands, usually by visiting a scrap metal dealer who will buy different bits of metal for money. So what’s the big idea about recycling then?

When people think of recycling, they tend to think of some chemical or mechanised process whereby a recycling plant takes some old and turns it in to something completely new, suitable for reuse ad ready for sale. We also tend to think of this as an environmentally friendly practice, but we’re never really told why. In fact, recycling can be the process of melting scrap metals for resale, but it can also be put under the heading of what your average scrap dealer will do when he sells a piece of metal on to someone else. Recycling can be defined as reusing in any sense of the word, which is environmentally friendly for one key reason – the more scrap metal reintroduced into circulation, the less metal that has to be manufactured.

Manufacturing metal is by its very nature environmentally intensive, creating toxic fumes and a certain amount of wastage that’s anything but kind to the planet. As we cut down the amount of manufacturing going on we cut out some of the pollution and waste that wreaks havoc on the earth, yet we fill in the void created by recycled scrap metal. With scrap metal just as usable as fresh metal and far less environmentally taxing, it makes sense to promote the trade and use of scrap in manufacturing processes, rather than to continually produce more and more fresh material at the expense of the environment. For this reason, recycling scrap metal is both cost effective for the buyer, and environmentally friendly all round.

Recycling scrap metal is a fantastic way that your business can help the environment. Scrap metal, as the name suggests, is unwanted metal parts and pieces, which are traded and sold as a commodity as well as used to practical effect. Trading in scrap metal prevents the need for further manufacture by reducing the overall demand, and if you can be resourceful with other people’s wasted material, you can save your business money, as well as saving the environment and halting dangerous weather patterns. From raw material stages through to finishing and distribution, the production chain of many products is carbon intensive. Carbon dioxide, being the main contributor to global warming, is what you should aim to avoid, and if you can find scrap material in place of new material, you are diminishing the demand for metal production, hence reducing the carbon emissions associated with it.

Another benefit of using and recycling scrap metal is that scrap has a residual value in trade as a commodity. Even if you don’t make use of the scrap material in your own business, you can easily hold on to it until you find a buyer for scrap materials, in which case you should be able to earn a profit as an investment buy. What this means is, in effect, you can reap the value of a bulk investment in scrap metal, whilst also acquiring odd bits of scrap that may be necessary in the course of your trade. Eventually, you can even reap a return when the market for scrap increases, whether online or on the open market.

Recycling scrap metal is a great way to save your business money and the environment. Scrap metal is both purposeful and valuable at an investment level, and eventually you should be able to sell any excess scraps to generate extra income on your purchase. Of course, if you know what you’re looking for in a bulk scrap lot, trading in scrap can be quite a profitable endeavour. Either way, you’re contributing to saving and preserving the environment for the future of our people, whilst helping to calm the effects of global warming to reduce severe weather patterns and climate change.