Have To Washing Plastic Before Recycling

In daily plastic recycling, cleaning is almost an indispensable key step. Whether it is scattered recycling in households or centralized recycling in enterprises, unwashed plastics often become a "source of pollution" in the recycling chain, which may not only lose their recycling value, but also affect the quality of a batch of recycled plastics.

Below, we will discuss the necessity, correct methods, and special circumstances of cleaning before plastic recycling from multiple perspectives, to help everyone clarify this key link in recycling.

Qualified recycled raw materials: 

The core goal of plastic recycling is to convert waste plastics into qualified recycled materials, and impurities are the number one problem that restricts the quality of recycled materials. Food delivery boxes that have been contaminated with oil, snack bags with residual sauce, and plastic bottles containing beverages will have their surface and internal residues firmly adhere to the plastic.

In the subsequent crushing and melting processing, these residues will either carbonize to form black spots or peel off from the plastic matrix to form voids, resulting in a significant decrease in the strength and toughness of recycled plastics, which cannot be used to manufacture high-quality products and can only be downgraded or even directly scrapped. Especially for recycled plastics used in food packaging, strict cleaning is an essential step to prevent harmful substances from seeping into the new products.

Chain pollution: 

Recycling plastics requires a centralized sorting and batch processing process, and a small amount of contaminated plastic may cause chain pollution. For example, if a plastic lunch box with a large amount of oil stains is mixed into the recycling batch, the oil stains will adhere to other clean plastics during sorting and crushing.

These contaminated plastics will increase the sorting difficulty of recycling plants and reduce processing efficiency; In severe cases, the entire batch of plastic is discarded due to excessive pollution and non-compliance with processing standards, resulting in resource waste. Meanwhile, damp residues may also breed bacteria and produce odors during transportation and storage, further damaging the recycling environment.

The difference in washing: 

Washing plastic does not require overly complex operations and can be treated differently according to the degree of pollution. For lightly contaminated plastics such as beverage bottles and mineral water bottles, empty the residual liquid and rinse with clean water. After rinsing, invert and dry to avoid moisture residue affecting subsequent processing;

For heavily contaminated plastics such as takeaway boxes and oily tableware, soak them in warm water with a small amount of neutral detergent for a moment, gently wipe them off, and then rinse them off with clean water. Be careful not to use strong acid or alkali cleaners to prevent corrosion of the plastic and change its properties; For plastic containers with labels, the labels can be removed during cleaning. If there are residual adhesive marks, they can be soaked in warm water and wiped to reduce the burden of subsequent processing.

Attention: 

Although washing is important, there are also special situations where deliberate washing is not necessary. One is completely uncontaminated plastics, such as brand new plastic packaging that is damaged before use, plastic films that only come into contact with clean paper, etc. These plastics have no residual impurities and can be directly recycled after simple sorting;

The second type is severely damaged and heavily polluted plastic, such as plastic containers stained with paint or chemical reagents, or plastic that has been broken into small fragments and is difficult to remove stains. These types of plastics have extremely low recycling value, and forced cleaning may also cause water waste and are usually classified as non recyclable waste.