POLLUTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE OCEAN

Having drunk a bottle of water, you throw the plastic container out into the trash, without thinking about its future. But this little bottle can outlive you, your children, grandchildren and many more generations of your family. The fact is that the period of plastic dissolution takes at least 200 years. Imagine - every day the mankind gets rid of tons of plastic garbage, which litters our planet more and more.

Enormous amount of plastic gets into the world ocean, which causes irreparable damage to more than 260 biological species - seabirds and animals, fish, turtles, etc. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a lot of plastic waste has accumulated to form an entire continent - the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the catastrophic result of the wrong attitude of a human towards recycling.

One of the steps towards solving the problem of ecosystem pollution is recycling. A competent approach to the disposal, sorting and recycling of garbage can reduce the harmful effects to our nature, can begin to restore the damage already done. One of the modern processing methods is the grinding of plastic into small pieces - the resulting flakes are used in secondary production.

FLAKES AND THEIR APPLICATION

PET-flakes – these are ground plastic products (Polyethylene terephthalate), from which it is possible to produce various containers, chemical fibers. Further these materials can be used to make polyester, etc. Ground flakes are used for secondary production, which helps to reduce the harmful effects on the environment, the ecosystem and helps to reduce the pollution level with long-decaying plastic.

After re-melting, the flakes retain their primary quality properties - tensile stiffness, transparency, wear resistance, flexibility, etc. This gives an opportunity to manufacture products that can be used in many areas of human activity.

A huge number of products are produced from PET flakes, including:

• Fiber (for sewing textiles);
• Geosynthetics;
• All sorts of plastic inventory - for cleaning, sports, games, etc .;
• Synthetic pile for carpets;
• Granulate for the production of PET preforms;
• Banding tape;
• Packaging materials, etc;

A wide range of flakes applications offers great promise for products manufacturers.

PET BOTTLE RECYCLING PROCESS

The process of recycling plastic to obtain flakes is carried out in several stages:
1. Preparation of secondary materials – plastic is sorted on the factory according to color, with grinding of other types of polymers;
2. Grinding – the products, sorted by color, are crushed by grinding devices. Flakes crushed by color will be more expensive than the ones that were crushed without prior sorting;
3. Washing – the ground flakes go through several washing steps, including the use of chemical reagents, when passing through the flotation bath, flakes are separated from the remnants of the crushed lid and label;
4. Drying – before packing it is necessary to dry the flakes thoroughly. For this, airflow drying technology is applied.
5. Packaging – flakes are packaged and packed in bags for selling.

SEPARATE GARBAGE COLLECTION

For many countries, the separate collection of garbage is already a familiar and ordinary business, which involves both organizations and ordinary citizens. It is important to understand that by spending a bit of your personal time, you contribute to the cleaning of the environment from deposits of elements that can decompose for centuries and cause irreparable harm to the ecosystem and atmosphere. Recycling is one of the effective ways to reduce pollution and waste.

Pay attention - is there a container for separate waste near your building? Such containers are most often painted in bright colors and are intended for separate disposal of plastic, organics, glass, paper and metal. If there are no such garbage cans in the neighborhood, you can purchase such containers for home use yourself. In each city there are collection points for sorted garbage or community organizations specializing in its collection.

Why should I sort the garbage? Asking this question, you must understand that if no one cared about the environment, we would all have suffocated long ago under the piles of our own waste. You should always start with yourself - to make a small, but such a significant contribution to improving the environment for everyone. You do not do it for someone, you do it for yourself, creating the best conditions for further life on our planet.