Giving packaging a new
life
Even when I put rubbish in the recycling bin, I don't think I ever believed
that I am doing much good to the environment. I think its because I never got
to see the process of recycling. After watching this video, I got to realise
the importance of separating the rubbish to different catagories. Even if not
all people put what they should put in the recycling bin, it is not much of an
issue because majority of people are cautious and all the recyclable rubbish
goes through a separation stage. Everyone knows that recycling is good for the
environment but not many people know that some recycled materials are essential
to make new products, such as recycled papers are essential ingredient to make
new toilet papers. Once they realise that recycled materials are very important
resource and do get used to create new products, people will be more conscious
and aware.
Sorting methods includes the use of magnets (tin cans are separated
using magnets), floating on water, air blowing (plastic films), washing drums
and grinding and separating. These processes can cost upto 50% of total
recycling process.
Recycling plastics are a little bit more complicated. Plastics are
sorted using automatic techniques in to films, bottles, PET, expended
polystyrene or mixed plastics. Films get melted and re-stretched. Drainage
pipes, frames, or toy car wheels can be made from recycled mix plastics.
How its made
It is very interesting to see the process of making products are
always around us. I was first of all surprised by the speed it was being
produced. Process of deep drawing aluminium cans produces up to 1800 per minute.
Different production processes such as making corrugated cardboard, glass
bottles, metal containers and can were mostly machine operated and did not
require much human contact. All the process was done by machine from pressing,
steaming, stacking, perforating, scoring, colouring, gluing to folding. It is
interesting to see how much different tasks machines can manage and all it
needs is someone to monitor the process.
The process of making corrugated cardboard was surprisingly crafty.
It is just a easy process of pressing paper through the corrugator machine and
gluing liners on both sides to give strength. It is amazing how one random mistake
made by an individual in the 1870s developed in to an idea of making strong
cardboards for product packaging.
Flexible metal container first developed in 1841 is certainly being
used widely until now for packaging products like skin products and pharmaceutical
products. It is a very useful for its light weight and malleability. It is also
affordable and highly recyclable as aluminium can be recycled as many times as
it will never deteriorate. More than 87% of aluminium cans produced in Germany
is recycled. The printing on the aluminum is done by using polyester ink and
tube remains flexible even after product is inserted and sealed. A layer of
varnish is applied to protect the paint on cans and also in the insides to
prevent aluminium being eaten away from the acid contents.
Plastic bottles and jars can also be recycled. When making PET
bottles, 10% of recycled PET flaked are combined as reprocessing more than 10%
of recycled PET can lose some of physical properties.
Something I have learnt after watching the video was the benefits
for using tetrapak. I thought using tetrapack was not very green as the
recycling process seemed very complicated but it was actually not hard at all
compared to all the positive elements. Tetrapack keeps the product safe upto a
year without preservation, light weight, compact and recyclable. In the
recycling process, the plastic and the aluminium gets separated to be recycled
and the remains are used to make cement.
Glass bottles uses less energy than producing metals and plastics as
it can be recycled endlessly. The process of combining natural ingredients
together to create molten glass is incredible. What human can develop with the
resource available to us is amazing and endless.
