Plastic bottles can be seen everywhere in our day-to-day lives. Products such as water bottles, soda bottles, cooking oil, food containers and other products are all made up of plastic. As we know there are different types of plastics but for producing bottles that contain food or potable water, we prefer Polyethylene Terephthalate which is also commonly known as PET. This material produces bottles that are lightweight, yet strong and durable. Although the process is slightly based on proprietary methods, the basic method for producing bottles is universal.
Why is it important to collect Post-consumer PET bottles?
The empty PET discarded from the consumer is known as Post-consumer PET in the recycling industry. The government or local recycling agencies collect this waste and ship it to the material recovery facilities.
PET bottles are highly sophisticated material and it is highly valuable to throw it in a bin. It can be recycled, which means we can produce many new products using the used bottles. Every year billions of bottle waste get around the world. Collecting the whole waste can drastically reduce the waste and safeguard the environment. This recycling of PET starts from collecting the huge waste and compressing it to the huge bales and transferring it to the recycling plants and the PET bottles are crushed into flakes.
What are PET flakes?
Bottles made of Polyethylene terephthalate can be used to make lower grade products. PET flakes means small fragments of PET bottles which are broken off from the whole by cutting or crushing operations.
Process of making PET flakes to PET bottles:-
After undergoing the recycling process, we get the end product in the form of flakes which is known as PET flakes. After testing the quality of flakes/pellets and ensuring it is 100% safe they are turned back into bottles.
To produce the PET bottles, we use an injection stretch blow molding machine or PET blow molding machine. This sophisticated machine melts the flakes then dries it and turns it to perform. The injection molding injects the performs into desired molds and the robots cool and pay the production. We need a blow molding machine to cool the performers. Finally, the performers come out in perfect shape which is easy to transport and ready to make new bottles. This way of making bottles from recycled plastics there won’t be any wastage or nothing to send to landfills. We can’t find unnecessary drain on new resources and it’s the best resource and has wide usability.
Here at bright PET washing line industries, we aspire to make top-grade PET flakes for our clients to meet the requirements on a satisfactory level. Post-consumer PET bottles are crushed, shredded, hot/cold washed and sorted into different colors that are offered for sale to manufacturing companies directly. PET flakes are used to produce a range of products starting from polyester sheets to turning them back into PET bottles.
Hot washed PET Flakes:
These are used for several purposes such as:-
Polyester:- It accounts for roughly 60% of the world’s production of PET, more than what is used for making bottles. Polystyrene fabrics are used in clothes, home furnishing, shirts to hats, curtains, blankets etc.
Polyester Strapping:- This is a very strong material and can take up a lot of tension before elongation. It can be used to produce polyester strapping which is used in the packaging industry.
Polyester films:- Wide area of PET application is polyester films. Single and multi-layer films used for manufacturing industrial packages and food product packages.
Polyester Sheet for thermoforming:- We can use this sheet at least four ways such as insulation materials, packaging for toys, containers for grocery and food items.
Textile fibers:- Particular properties such as tensile strength, abrasion resistance and low moisture absorbing capacity, make the PET the most important raw material for manufacturing synthetics fibers. Textiles made of PET are crease resistant, weather resistant and fast drying, which makes them an excellent choice for manufacturing sports clothing- everyone can make a use of cozy polar fleece during winter time.
Cold washed PET Flakes:-
It may include labels and caps. These may have a thin PVC layer such as 88% PET, 4% PVC and the rest are multi-layer. Moisture is a common feature in cold washed PET Flakes. We should expect around 1% moisture. They can come as transparent as well as dark, gren, blue or in other colors.
Unwashed PET Flakes:-
These flakes are produced by crushing used PET bottles and may come with or without labels and caps. These flakes are widely used in industries for numerous purposes such as:-
Polyester resins:- PET in the form of resins is used as a component of paints and lacquers, and when combined with curing agents, it is used for making durable composites on the basis of polyester textiles.
Bottles:- Roughly 30% of the world’s production of PET is used to produce bottles. After the bottles are used by the consumers, they are collected, cleaned and crushed , then hydrolysed to be recycled back into bottles.
Recycled products will help us deal with plastic pollution in the future. We need to render a well-balanced, clean and healthy environment to our future generations and thus, this battle should be won anyhow.
