The Cylce

Brad Ingenbrandt

Life Cycle of A Plastic Milk Jug

1. Milk jugs sit on the shelf ready to be bought and used by families all over America.
2. After the milk jug is emptied the jug can be recycled with glass metals and papers.
3. Either the recyclables can be taken to a recycling center by a provided truck or by the purchaser. Either way works just find.
4. At the recycling center long conveyer belts separate the types of recyclables. Some places do it by hand others do it by weight. Heavier metals and glass settle to the bottom. Plastics in the middle, and papers and cardboard tend to stay at the top.
5. The separated recyclables move to different areas of the processing center or can be sent out to another place that specializes in specific types of material (glass centers, plastic centers, paper centers, metal centers.)
6. The plastic is shredded into small pieces so that It can later be melted down. To get a specific color of plastic computer technology can take inventory of colors and rid mixtures of specific colors using pressurized air, the process is almost so fast you cant see it.
7. The plastic is melted down in low heat; it can then be made into anything desirable. Most plastic milk jugs are recycled and made into more plastic milk jugs, thus the cycle continues.

-It is important to recycle plastics because plastics come from petroleum. The down side to using petroleum is that petroleum is a non renewable resource there for once you use it once it cant be re created or recycled and used again. That is why it is so important to recycle especially plastics.