Plastic pollution is a problem the world faces because it concerns the earth’s ecosystem and human health. From the vast ocean to the dense cities, ubiquitous plastic waste has penetrated every aspect of our lives. Solving the problem of plastic pollution is urgent and requires the joint efforts of all parties.
Why we need to tackle plastic pollution
Since the mass production of lightweight and durable plastic products in the 1960s, they have been widely used worldwide.
In the 1990s, plastic pollution gradually became an important issue of environmental pollution. Many plastic wastes are difficult to degrade and persist in the environment. The potential risks to the ecological ecosystem have also made the issue of plastic waste a focus of attention.
Plastic rubbish in the oceans
As of 2024, about 14 million tons of plastic trash enter the ocean annually. About 358 trillion microplastic particles are floating in the sea, and many microplastics (less than 5 mm in diameter) are also in the sea. It is estimated that the number of microplastic particles in the ocean has exceeded 5 trillion. These plastic wastes accumulate in various forms, from large fragments to microplastics, posing a severe threat to marine life and ecosystems.
Plastic trash is widely distributed, accumulating in garbage patches in the middle of the ocean and found in coastal areas, beaches, coral reefs, and even polar regions. Plastic trash on the ocean’s surface accounts for only a tiny part of the total amount of plastic in the sea, with large amounts sinking to the seafloor or suspended in the water column.
Improperly managed plastic trash leaks into the marine environment through different channels is accidentally eaten by marine life or becomes entangled and suffers physical damage.
If current methods of plastic production and disposal do not improve significantly, plastic in the ocean is expected to exceed the weight of fish in the sea by 2050.
These figures reflect the severity of ocean plastic trash, which severely threatens marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health.
Plastic waste on land
As of 2024, Globally, the total amount of plastic waste generated continues to increase, causing a heavy environmental burden. In terms of numbers, about 300 million metric tons of plastic waste are generated worldwide each year.
The pollution and impact caused by plastic trash on land are multifaceted. In microplastics, harmful substances will be released, and plastics may release toxic chemicals such as plasticizers, heavy metals, and stabilizers during degradation. These chemicals will seep into the soil, further contaminate groundwater sources.
Plastic waste will also flow into water bodies, block drainage systems, and cause flooding problems, especially in cities, which are very common in both developed and developing countries, seriously affecting the quality of life of local people.
Plastic waste also releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane during degradation, exacerbating climate change and making plastic contamination a solid waste management issue and a global climate issue.
The environmental hazards of incorrect plastic disposal methods
Although we face a vast “plastic challenge,” we have many ways to deal with plastic waste. Some seem to solve the plastic problem, but they are destructive methods.
Incineration
‘Open burning’ fails to protect the environment and poses a serious hazard to human health because burning plastics releases many toxic and harmful chemical substances, such as dioxins, furans, and heavy metals. These substances will pollute the air and enter the soil and water bodies through sedimentation, posing a severe threat to the environment and human health.
Discard at will
Illegal dumping of plastic waste in open spaces, rivers, and even agricultural land leads to long-term accumulation of plastics, decomposition of harmful substances, pollution of soil and water sources, and accumulation of large amounts of plastics contamination will destroy the ecosystem and affect the living environment of animals and plants.
Buried
Landfilling garbage is also an excellent way to deal with it, but there are strict regulations for landfilling garbage. Since the degradation cycle of plastics is exceptionally long, they occupy a lot of space in landfills. Improper landfilling will also shorten the life of landfills and increase the burden of waste management.
Sorting Recycling
Now, most developed and developing countries are advocating for garbage sorting. Many people don’t understand and find it very troublesome. However, unsorted recycling will cause a waste of resources. It will also pollute the recycling system. Mixed recycling or the incorporation of pollutants will reduce the quality of recycled materials, making many plastics unable to be effectively dealt with.
If the above methods are correctly handled, they will improve the environment, but there are still particular pollution and hazards. Is there a way to recycle and sort and then use it to become a circular process? Yes, with the development of the times and the continuous advancement of science and technology, developed and developing countries are constantly researching new technologies for plastic recycling, which can improve the environmental pollution caused by plastic waste more efficiently and environmentally friendly.
Best Plastic Handling methodologies
Compared with the above incorrect treatment methods, mechanical recycling is now a more environmentally friendly and sustainable plastic treatment method. Mechanical recycling converts waste plastics into new plastic products, reducing the demand for virgin plastics and saving non-renewable resources such as oil.
Through efficient and convenient methods of sorting and recycling, the amount of plastic entering landfills and being incinerated is reduced, thereby reducing the risk of soil, water, and air pollution.
Mechanical recycling encourages the recycling of plastics, helps to form a closed-loop economy, reduces the overall impact on the environment, and creates new economic opportunities.
Solving Environmental Pollution with Plastic Recycling Machines
Many people don’t understand how to deal with plastic trash using plastic recycling machinery and the benefits because conventional methods are seen, heard, and used a lot. The recycling of plastic machinery is still relatively unfamiliar to most people, and they are not transparent about the entire process.
The entire process of a plastic recycling machine usually includes collection, classification, crushing, washing, reprocessing, and reuse. Through such a process, the discarded plastic trash will be recycled and reused and become new items for us to use again. Each link is linked together. The next step can be carried out only after completing the previous step, and finally, high-quality products are obtained.
The first step is the collection
The sources of plastic waste are various, including households and corporate factories. Plastic waste is collected through a particular recycling plan and can enter the next classification step.
The second part is the classification
because there are various types of garbage, and the plastics used in our daily lives are also various. Different types of plastics have different chemical compositions and unique physical properties. They must be separated and processed through classification to achieve a one-to-one effect so that the subsequent recycling and reprocessing process will not be complicated.
Common plastics in our lives include PET, HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS, etc. These plastics can be manually sorted, but the efficiency is not high. When they cannot be distinguished in appearance, manual sorting will have problems. Therefore, to improve efficiency and avoid mistakes, special plastic machinery can be used for sorting, such as optical sorting, floating washing tanks, etc. When the collected plastic trash is sorted, entering the crushing, washing, and recycling part is necessary, which plays a vital role in the later reprocessing and reuse.
The third part is Crushing
which turns the original complete plastic products into small plastic flakes through a crusher. The flakes will be washed more cleanly, which is more convenient for subsequent processing steps and will help homogenize the material’s size and shape.
The fourth part is time to enter the washing part.
The degree of washing of the plastic flakes determines the grade of the final product and whether it can be made into high-grade plastic products for people to use. The primary function of washing is to remove dirt, grease, food residues, glue, and other impurities on the surface. Through hot or cold washing, detergent is added to the water to wash the flakes and ensure the plastic is not contaminated.
Washing can also help to sort plastics. For example, most labels and bottle caps are made of other materials in PET water bottles. If the bottle cap labels are removed manually, it is a considerable project. Even with manual labor, it is not possible to remove them 100%. At this time, the recycling machine can use the different physical properties of these plastics to separate the smaller bottle caps and label fragments in the floating washing tank using different specific gravity differences, finally ensuring that the PET plastic flakes are washed and purified.
In the washing part, it is necessary to start completely relying on mechanical recycling because many plastic flakes are washed, and many steps cannot be completed by manpower to ensure the final effect and grade of plastic flakes.
Subsequent reprocessing and reuse
is to use clean flakes to melt and reshape them into the raw materials of new plastic products – plastic pellets. Then, according to different needs, the pellets can be transformed into new plastic products, such as scrap sheets, pipes, bottles, etc.
Plastic recycling machinery can crush, wash, and reprocess discarded plastic products, converting them into plastic pellets that can be reused. These particles can make new plastic products, forming a closed-loop circular economy model. This model reduces waste generation and energy and resource consumption required to produce new plastic products. Each type of plastic has a corresponding appropriate recycling machine; the only natural resources considered lost are sand, soil, etc.
Types of Plastic Recycling Washing Machines
There are many types of plastics, each with a corresponding exclusive recycling line. The appropriate recycling line is customized according to different final requirements.
Take the most common plastics in our lives, such as PET, PP, PE, and HDPE. These four categories are our common plastics, mainly used as drinking water bottles, plastic bags, plastic films, milk bottles, and other daily plastic products.
PET water bottle washing line:
PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is ubiquitous. We drink mineral water bottles, Coca-Cola water bottles, and plastic packaging boxes for food, etc. It is often used in food packaging because it is non-toxic and tasteless and has high hygienic and safety performance.
Because plastics are inseparable from life, to ensure that people can use them safely and do not threaten human health, there are also high standards for the application of PET.
Among them, the highest requirement is food grade (bottle to bottle). To ensure the final quality requirements of PET flakes, the steps of the entire food-grade washing line are complete.
From the beginning of fine impurities and separation of magnetic metals, high-performance trommel machines are needed to separate impurities in raw materials, effectively improving product quality.
Most of the collected PET water bottles have labels. Manual label removal is a huge workload, especially for large-capacity washing lines. The label remover machine will rub each bottle at high speed to destroy the label attached to the bottle and separate the label.
PET flakes must be thoroughly washed to remove contaminants, grease, and other impurities on the surface. High-temperature water and specific detergents are usually used during the washing process to ensure that substances that affect safety are removed to the greatest extent. For example, other plastics may not require hot washing, but hot washing is necessary in the PET food-grade washing line. To ensure cleanliness, there are usually two or more hot washing steps. Hot washing uses heat, chemical force, and mechanical force. It utilizes the mutual friction between bottle pieces and the shear force of the clean water vortex to remove impurities from the surface of the bottle pieces.
After multiple cold and hot washers, the impurities remaining in the bottle flakes are also cleaned and enter dehydration and drying to ensure the moisture content of the bottle flakes because the moisture content of the final product is an essential indicator of PET recycling. The machine’s dehydration efficiency determines the quality of the finished product, which means whether it can be used as a raw material for high-quality products. High-quality bottle flakes require a moisture content of less than 1%, which requires a high-performance de-watering machine and drying system.
According to the strict requirements of PET bottle flakes, the dust in the bottle flakes will significantly impact the final product, not to mention the bottle-to-bottle requirements. Therefore, the label blower machine is very important before the final bottle flakes are output, which can effectively separate the dust and fine labels in the bottle flakes.
PP PE film washing line:
PP PE is widely used in our lives as a film product. Film plastics are commonly used in packaging, agriculture, industry, and daily life because of their thinness, flexibility, transparency, waterproofness, chemical resistance, and economy. However, these characteristics also make film plastics easily abused and discarded at will, causing environmental pollution. Therefore, it is essential to use and recycle film plastics correctly.
The thickness is uniform, and the dirt attached to the surface will be easy to remove. The film plastics, after washing, have fewer residual pollutants, which means that the plastic film has a high degree of cleanliness. PP PE flakes that meet the cleanliness standards after recycling and washing can be made into new plastic products, such as films, plastic bags, etc., and can continue to serve the packaging and agricultural fields.
Therefore, the PP PE film washing line always adopts cold and friction washing methods. These treatment methods will not destroy the physical properties of the film. Cold washing uses water as the medium to separate different substances through the floating washing tank according to their specific gravity. The rinsing roller is designed to remove residual impurities to the maximum extent through the robust pressure water cleaning design. The claw design ensures uniform discharge and controls the moisture content.
A friction washer is to apply blade impact force to the material at the most appropriate rotation speed to achieve the best effect. To ensure that the film is of high quality after the final washing, the moisture content is also a significant indicator. The early de-watering machine or pipe drying system is indispensable for the film. The de-watering machine uses blade impact to disperse the material in the machine evenly, and the centrifugal force generated by high-speed rotation can remove moisture to the greatest extent. Pipe drying evaporates the moisture on the material’s surface through the hot air system, and the moisture content can be guaranteed to be 5-8%.
Other machines
Crusher
The crusher is a very important part of the entire mechanical recycling. It can be used as the beginning of the whole line, or it can be used independently as a single machine.
Small plastics, such as water bottles, films, etc., can be directly put into the crusher and turned into smaller plastic flakes. The screen size can also be customized according to specific size requirements. A rotating blade shaft inside the crusher matches the fixed and rotating blades. The plastic is crushed by high-speed rotation. The crusher can also be connected to the water pipe for wet crushing to achieve the effect of pre-washing.
Shredder
In most cases, the shredder will be used as a single machine, but the shredder is handy in the washing line, especially when encountering large volumes, such as plastic barrels, pipes, etc. As the saying goes, you can’t eat a fat man in one breath. In the face of large volumes of plastic, no matter how good the crushing ability of the crusher is, it is necessary to seek the help of the shredder to tear large pieces of plastic into smaller pieces, which will facilitate the subsequent crushing work.
Pelletizer
The function of the pelletizer is to melt and extrude the broken and washed plastic flakes into uniform pellets. These particles can be used as materials for recycled plastics and are suitable for injection molding, blow molding, extrusion, and other processing technologies. Now, these particles are in a very good market. Efficient and stable machines are also the key to ensuring the quality of particles.
Color sorter
The working principle of the color sorter (Color Sorter) is based on optical detection and airflow sorting technology, which can accurately sort by automatically identifying and separating the color differences of materials.
The core of the color sorter is the optical detection system, which usually comprises a high-resolution CCD or CMOS camera and an LED light source. The camera captures the image of the material and identifies its color, shape, and other optical characteristics. Some high-end color sorters also use multispectral imaging technology, combining different bands of light, such as visible light and infrared light, for detection to improve sorting accuracy.
How to choose a plastic recycling machine supplier
Choosing the proper plastic machinery recycling manufacturer is critical to ensuring the recycling process is efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly. Here are a few essential considerations for choosing the proper manufacturer:
- Choose manufacturers with rich experience. They usually have robust design, manufacturing, and service capabilities and can cope with various technical challenges. Experienced companies can usually provide customized solutions.
- Ensure the manufacturer has a strict quality control process, including material selection, production process, and final product testing. These measures help ensure the reliability and durability of the equipment.
- The manufacturer should provide comprehensive technical support, including installation and commissioning, operation training, and regular maintenance services to ensure long-term stable operation of the equipment.
- Make sure the manufacturer’s equipment suits your specific recycling needs. For example, different types of plastics (PET, PE, PP, etc.) may require different types of mechanical equipment.
- For special needs, choose manufacturers that can provide customized solutions. They should be able to design and produce equipment according to customer-specific requirements to ensure the equipment fully meets the actual application needs.
- Consider the initial purchase cost and evaluate the equipment’s operating cost, energy efficiency, and economic feasibility in the long term. Cost-effective equipment usually provides stable performance and a long service life while reducing production costs.
- Choose a manufacturer that can provide environmentally friendly equipment. The equipment should have the characteristics of low energy consumption, low emissions, and a high recovery rate and comply with current environmental regulations and standards.
Recommended Boxin Plastic Machinery Recycling
Boxin Machinery has nearly 20 years of experience in the plastic recycling machinery industry and has been focusing on the design, development, and production of efficient plastic recycling equipment. Boxin Machinery has its own factory and production workshop. The workers are all experienced in the industry for more than ten years. The technical team can customize exclusive recycling machinery according to the different needs of customers.
Taking the Boxin crusher as an example, the crusher uses D2 blades, which are widely used in crushers because of their high wear resistance and durability. This material contains a high proportion of carbon and chromium, providing excellent hardness and wear resistance.
The durability of the blades means that they can remain sharp for a long time, reducing the frequency of replacement and thus reducing maintenance costs.
The spindle is specially treated to increase the hardness and strength of the spindle. The large rotating diameter means the crusher can handle more extensive materials and improve production efficiency.
Boxin crusher is also equipped with a hydraulic system that plays a vital role in the crusher, providing the required power to drive the various components of the machine. The hydraulic cover opening function makes maintenance and overhauls more convenient, and users can quickly open the machine’s cover to conduct necessary inspections or replace parts.
These features combine to make the Boxin crusher an efficient, reliable, and easy-to-maintain industrial equipment. Integrating the hydraulic system, especially for hydraulic screen changing and lid opening, further improves the convenience of operation and the machine’s operating efficiency.
To ensure the machine’s service life, Boxin uses 304 stainless steel for all parts of the material that come into contact with water in the washing line.
With the continuous development of plastic washing line technology, Boxin Machinery adopts crushing first and then washing. This method puts the original material recovery of waste plastics at the core and is committed to improving the removal rate of impurities. We know that the higher the purity of the finished product, the stronger its ability to be converted into high-quality downstream products. This can significantly reduce the manufacturing cost of downstream products and reduce losses in the production process.
We are committed to rationalizing production costs while ensuring the cleanliness of plastic fragments. Through process control automation, we can produce high-quality plastic fragments stably. In addition, the automation of the production process improves efficiency and effectively reduces labor costs, bringing more significant economic benefits to the company.
Boxin Machinery promises to provide customers with efficient and environmentally friendly plastic recycling solutions through continuous technological innovation and process optimization and jointly promote the plastic recycling industry to a greener and more sustainable future.
