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Home / How recycling works / What happens to my bottle?
What happens to my bottle?
So you have enjoyed an ice cold drink and you then drop your bottle in a Recycle Zone unit at a theme park, an airport or a shopping centre - what happens next?
Step 1 - Squashing
Your plastic bottle is squashed into a dry bale and sent to a reprocessor, for example the Closed Loop Recycling Plant at Dagenham.
Step 2 - Dry cleaning
Your bottle is spun to shake off dirt, and a magnet removes any metal.
Step 3 - Sorting
Your bottle is then sorted by its type or colour. This can be optical sorting, where a beam of light detects if the bottle is HDPE or PET or other. It can also be manually sorted.
Step 4 - Grinding
Your bottle is then ground into flakes and these flakes are then sorted to remove coloured flakes and other contaminants.
Step 5 - Decontamination
The PET flakes are decontaminated by removing the surface layer using a solution of caustic soda. The HDPE flakes are melted, sleved, and turned into pellets. The flakes or pellets can then be made back into a new bottle for you to drink from and recycle again!
Did you know that your plastic bottle may not just become a bottle again? It could also become a plastic bag, garden furniture, seed trays, fleece, and fibre filling for sleeping bags and duvets, depending on how the bottle is recycled.
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