What is PET?

PET is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family. It consists of

polymerized units of monomer ethylene terephthalate.
It is used in fibres for clothing, thermoforming for manufacturing, container for
liquids and foods and in combination with glass fibre for engineering resins.
1. What is the problem with PET bottles?
Firstable, the story starts in an oil refinery where the polymer is formed by
chemically bonding oil and gas molecules together.
2. What is the problem with PET bottles?
Then, with a set of processes, the polymer is turned into millions of pellets. These
pellets are melted at manufacturing plants and reformed in molds to create the
resilient material that makes up the bottles’ body.
3. What is the problem with PET bottles?
After that, machines filled the bottles with a drinkable liquid like water or soda.
4. What is the problem with PET bottles?
And they were then wrapped, shipped, bought, opened, consumed and
discarded. After this, there are three different situations.
Case 1.
They end up in a landfill. When it rains, rainwater flows through the waste and
absorbs the water-soluble compounds it contains, and some of those are highly
toxic. Together, they create a harmful stew called leachate that can move into
groundwater, soil and streams, poisoning ecosystems and harming wildlife. A
PET bottle can take 1000 years to decompose.
Case 2.
The PET bottles float on a trickle that reaches a steam. A steam that flows into a
river, and a river that reaches the ocean. After months, the bottles lost at sea,
they slowly drawn into a massive vortex, where thrash accumulates. A place
known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where the ocean’s currents have
trapped millions of pieces of plastic debris. However, there are five plastic-filled
gyred in the world’s seas. Places where the pollutants turn the water into a cloudy
plastic soup.
Case 2.
Some animals like seabirds, get entangled in the mess. They, and others, mistake
the brightly colored plastics bits for food. Plastics make them feel full when they
are not, so they starve to death and pass the toxins from the plastic up the food
chain.
For example, The plastic is eaten by lanternfish. The lanternfish is eaten by a
squid. The squid is eaten by a tuna, and the tuna is eaten by us. And most plastics
don’t biodegrade which means they’re destined to break down into smaller and
smaller pieces called micro plastics, which might rotate in the sea eternally.

Case 3
The case 3 is recycling. There are two kind of pet recycling: Chemical or
Mechanical. However, we are going to talk about the mechanical PET recycling
invention.
How are PET bottles recycled?
1. Detached
The process begins with the selection and classification of the raw material
(PET containers) according to their characteristics.
2. Pre-wash
The bottles are washed with warm water to remove dirt, labels and glue
residues. 60% of the glued labels are removed in this phase.
3. Grind
Bottles are ground in a shredder into flakes of 8 mm to 12 mm.
4. Friction Wash
The flakes are washed by rubbing them against each other. The last glue
residues, paper, and dirt are removed in this phase.
5. Flotation
Flakes are poured into water. Denser materials sink while less dense
materials float. This technique is used to separate PET bottles from
sleeves and caps in PP or HDPE.
6. Rinse, Dry and Pelletizing

Once again, the flakes are rinsed, dried, and then stored. When the
recycled plastic is destined for use in food applications, additional sorting
and cleaning steps are required—until the quality is high enough.

7. Pelleting
The flakes are melted. A considerable number of gases are released
during the melting process and an additional step is performed to clean
the plastic using filters. The resulting granules are known as re-granulate
and are fit for use in new products.
The products made of recycled PET
Furniture
Clothes
Cookware
Cloth Fibers
non-woven geotextile for the construction industry
Diapers