Part 1 Recycling old plastic www.growyourownpotatoes.org.uk

From bag to bag – recycling Do you know what recycling means? Recycling is turning rubbish that is thrown away into something that can be re-used. The black bags used for the Grow Your Own Potatoes (GYOP) project, are actually made from recycled plastic bags and bottles. Sue from GYOP visited a factory in Birmingham to see what’s involved.

Step one – recycling the used plastic The factory in Birmingham uses sheets of recycled plastic made from bags and bottles. This is where the process of making your GYOP grow bags starts. Here you can see large sheets of recycled plastic being fed into the machine to be recycled again.

This is the cutting machine This is the cutting machine. It has sharp blades that chew up the plastic….. …… into tiny pieces.

These tiny pieces are then heated to a very high temperature and become liquid plastic. If you look really carefully, you can see some of the liquid plastic

The liquid plastic then passes through a spaghetti head The liquid plastic then passes through a spaghetti head. This makes it easier for the next step, when a blade is used to chop it into lots of tiny pieces. This picture shows spaghetti plastic that has cooled and set. The colour of the spaghetti changes depending on the recycled material it is made from

These tiny pieces are called pellets. The pellets are still really hot when they leave the machine so they are plunged into cold water to cool down.

The pellets now have to pass through an air tunnel to make sure they are completely dry and cool. Once they are dry and cool they are ready to move onto the next step… making the new plastic sheets

See Part 2 – Making the new plastic sheets www.growyourownpotatoes.org.uk