Recycling
The materials are drawn from natural resources. However, the Earth’s re-sources are not infinite, but until recently, they have seemed to be: the demands made on them by manufacturing throughout the industrialization of society appeared infinitesimal, the rate of new discoveries outpacing the rate of consumption. Increasingly we realize that our society may be approaching certain fundamental limits. This has made access to materials an issue of national security of many nations, especially also to ensure that emerging new “sustainable” technologies can be supplied with metals and materials.
Recycling heals nature. Reusing old materials decreases the amount of waste. Not all materials can be recycled equally, they have different recyclability.
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Recyclability is the ability a material to reacquire the same properties it originally had. According to this definition, many materials are not recyclable because once they go through a recycling process, they no longer have the properties they had in their virgin state, where virgin state is defined as the purest form of the material before being processed or shaped for a specific use.
For example, recycled copper can achieve the same properties and qualities of copper of primary production such as thermal conductivity, mailability. Therefore, copper is recyclable. Recycled paper, on the other hand, does not have the same qualities or properties as virgin paper such as the purity of the color or fiber elasticity. Paper has a lower recyclability than copper. Therefore, the second application of recycled paper is different than the first, and this usually means of less value. Used paper is reused as insulation, animal bedding, filler fibers, or wallboard.
Recycling Plastics
Plastics are inexpensive, lightweight and durable materials, which can readily be molded into a variety of products that find use in a wide range of applications. As a consequence, the production of plastics has increased markedly over the last 60 years. However, current levels of their usage and disposal generate several environmental problems. Around 4 per cent of world oil and gas production, a non-renewable resource, is used as feedstock for plastics and a further 3 –4% is expended to provide energy for their manufacture. A major portion of plastic produced each year is used to make disposable items of packaging or other short-lived products that are discarded within a year of manufacture. These two observations alone indicate that our current use of plastics is not sustainable. In addition, because of the durability of the polymers involved, substantial quantities of discarded end-of-life plastics are accumulating as debris in landfills and in natural habitats worldwide.
Recycling is one of the most important actions currently available to reduce these impacts and represents one of the most dynamic areas in the plastics industry today. Recycling provides opportunities to reduce oil usage, carbon dioxide emissions and the quantities of waste requiring disposal. Here, we briefly set recycling into context against other waste-reduction strategies, namely reduction in material use through downgauging or product reuse, the use of alternative biodegradable materials and energy recovery as fuel. While plastics have been recycled since the 1970s, the quantities that are recycled vary geographically, according to plastic type and application. Recycling of packaging materials has seen rapid expansion over the last decades in a number of countries. Advances in technologies and systems for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of recyclable plastics are creating new opportunities for recycling, and with the combined actions of the public, industry and governments it may be possible to divert the majority of plastic waste from landfills to recycling over the next decades.
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