Translations:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Recycling/16/en
HDPE #2
All curbside recycling programs accept this container if it has a narrow neck. Milk, detergent and oil bottles, toys and plastic bags. HDPE is called natural since that is it's natural color, and it is the most valuable because it can be made into any color when it is recycled. Other products are often packed in brightly colored bottles which are mixed together at recycling plants into mixed color or rainbow bales. Most of this material is later dyed black after it is processed. Recycling HDPE is a pretty simple process. The bales are broken apart and ground into small flakes. These flakes are then washed and floated to removed and heavy (Sinkable) contaminants. This cleaned flake is then dried in a stream of hot air and may be boxed and sold in that form. More sophisticated plastic plants may reheat these flakes, add pigment to change the color and run the material through a pelletizer. This equipment forms little beads of plastic that can then be reused in injection molding presses to create new products. Some end uses for recycled HDPE are plastic pipes, lumber, flower pots, trash cans, or formed back into non food application bottles. Buy back examples: opaque gallon and 2.5 gallon water jugs and opaque juice containers. It takes 1.75 kilograms of petroleum (in terms of energy and raw materials) to make one kilogram of HDPE. HDPE is commonly recycled, and has the number "2" as its recycling symbol. In 2007, the global HDPE market reached a volume of more than 30 million tons. Non buy back examples: cooking oil, peanut butter jars and salad dressing containers should be put into a general recycling bin.
