The diagram illustrates the recycling process of glass and plastic bottles, which distinguish by following different steps.
Overall, both glass and plastic containers require the process of three main stages, comprising 8 steps each. The life cycle starts with bottles being collected and ends with the production of new products. This is achieved by turning plastic and glass bottles back to raw materials that later are melted in order to give it a certain shape.
Recycling of glass and plastic begins with the same steps: products are collected from specialised bins by garbage trucks and then are transported to a processing plant. While glass is sorted by colour, plastic is divided by thickness and quality. Before being crashed into small particles, plastic bottles are compressed into blocks, the process called “bundling”, however glass recycling does not involve such a step and go straight into machine for shredding. Once both are washed under liquid shower, they are melted and reshaped into new bottles. These two steps must be done by separate machines for glass and by the same one for plastic.