The illustration shows how plastic bottles are recycled in nine phases.
Overall, recycling plastic bottles is a nine-stage cyclical process and includes gathering plastic bottles, sorting them, compressing, crushing, producing and heating plastic pellets to from raw material and, finally, producing new products.
During the first three phases, used plastic garbage is collected from trash bins and sorted manually. Unappropriated plastic products are not processed further while those plastic bottles, which have been picked for recycling, are compressed into blocks and crushed into a pool with liquid. After plastic pellets are washed, they undergo additional crushing and heated later.
When raw materials are obtained as a result of heating plastic pallets, they are used to produce a big variety of products. New plastic bottles, containers for food, recyclable bags, T-shirts and pencils can be manufactured. As soon as any of them appears in a trash bin, the process of recycling reoccurs.