PLASTIC RECYCLING

There are four options available at the end of a plastic product's life: mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, energy recovery and landfill. In New Zealand, landfill is the prevalent destination for plastic products, with 18% of plastic packaging now being diverted through private and public recycling operations
The material collected by territorial authorities and recycling companies is used for mechanical recycling. This process involves: material collection - the plastics destined for recycling need to be collected; this may be from a manufacturing site, a commercial operation seeking to dispose of bulk packaging, such as pallet wrap, "drop off" points at schools, or from houses, from a kerbside collection
transport to the recycling centre , sorting into types that can be re-processed together, and either , baling for export or , cleaning to remove dirt and other contaminants normally this is done by cutting the plastics into small flakes and putting these flakes through a washing and drying process , the flakes are then melted and extruded (squirted) into thin lines and then chopped into granules , reuse - the granules, or pellets, can then be used to make new plastic products.
Innovative techniques in the energy recovery and materials recovery area are beginning to appear in Europe, the US and Japan. While the relatively small volumes of recyclable material available in this country may make such developments too expensive to establish here, the local industry continues to monitor, investigate and commit resources to seeking a technology, or technologies