At the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi in March 2022, heads of state, environment ministers, and other delegates from 175 countries adopted a historic resolution to end plastic pollution by 2024 and establish a legally binding international agreement. The resolution addresses the full life-cycle of plastic, including its production, design, and disposal. This may lead to a boom period for the plastics recycling industry.

The recycling of plastic waste can be divided into two categories: the first type is mechanical recycling. In this recycling process, various plastic wastes are classified and then shaped into the required shape by heating or mechanical force. It is a very perfect recycling method .

The second is chemical recycling. Plastics are degraded by high temperature, or react with specific chemicals, and can be re-decomposed into corresponding monomers, which are then polymerized into new plastics again.

Although this operation may seem cumbersome, it has gone through the process of "plastic-monomer-plastic", which can make recycled plastics comparable to virgin plastics in all aspects.

At present, only about 21% of plastic waste in the world is still recycled. So what's causing so much plastic waste to go untreated? Let's take a look at the difficulties in the actual implementation of plastic recycling.

Plastic is a general term for a large class of polymer compounds, and a variety of plastics are often used in plastic products. If different types of plastics are put together during processing, the performance of the final product will inevitably be affected. Therefore, the accurate classification of waste plastics before disposal is enough to cause headaches.

In order to improve the efficiency of the processing of plastics, the classification process is generally carried out in the following ways

1. Using manpower for screening, and manually sorting plastics by material and color.

2. Sorting plastics with the help of color sorting machines. Cut into pieces of plastic through the belt color sorter according to the material and color classification, of course, you can also screen the plastic particles.

3. Use intelligent sorting equipment to screen plastic whole bottles. The advantage of this type of sorting equipment is that you can directly screen plastic bottles without cutting into pieces , The material and color of the plastic can be sorted out, and different brands, different textures, different sizes, and more subtle features can be further sorted for plastics of the same material and color.

Although there are all kinds of technical difficulties in the process of plastic recycling, its potential is still huge. Professional information shows that every successful recovery of 1 ton of plastic waste can help humans save 130 million thousand coke energy.

Therefore, at the same time that we hope that the plastic recycling technology is further, we should also take garbage classification in daily life seriously. strength!

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