Recycling saves valuable resources, energy and money while reducing the greenhouse gases produced by landfills. An aluminum can may take up to 500 years to disintegrate in a landfill, but it only takes 60 days for a can to be collected, transported for recycling, melted down, made into a new can, refilled and delivered back to a store’s shelf. Recycling an old can into a new one uses 95% less energy than manufacturing a new aluminum can from scratch.
Recyclables are collected and transported to Urban Impact‘s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). Here, a number of automated and manual processes sort the material into different types. These separate material types are then baled and shipped to recycling facilities, where the materials are recycled into new products.
How plastic water bottles are made and what becomes of them once they go in the blue bin. Polyethylene terephthalate plastic, or PET, is 100% recyclable and used to make a wide variety of products. This is the lifecycle of a PET water bottle.