• Question: What makes a plastic recyclable? Why can some plastics be recycled and some can't?

    Asked by anon-224559 to Stuart, Scott, Lisa, Jack, Caragh, Alex on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Jack Saunders

      Jack Saunders answered on 12 Nov 2019:


      This is a very good question!

      I don’t know all of the reasons, but one of the biggest ones is how we recycle plastics. We like to take a plastic, heat it up and then change it into a new shape for a new use. Some plastics melt very easily when you heat them up and you can reshape them into what you want.

      However, some plastics can’t melt and if you try to heat them up they will burn and these cannot be changed into different shapes. So you can’t recycle them.

    • Photo: Caragh Whitehead

      Caragh Whitehead answered on 14 Nov 2019:


      Jack has given a great answer. Another problem with some plastics is that pigments have been added to give the plastic different colours. Some of these pigments make the plastic difficult to recycle. The worst plastic for this is black plastic which you find in a lot of food packaging such as microwave ready meals. Another problem is some plastics are made up of a mix of materials which means it is difficult to separate them during recycling for example disposable coffee cups. These have a layer of plastic on top of cardboard. It is very difficult and expensive to separate these layers.

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