How to recycle plastics

Overview

Various methods for recycling plastics as we learn about them.

Float sorting

1. Shred the plastic bottles, caps and all.
2. Dump into a hot water bath
   • this both cleans and sorts because the caps are made from HDPE, which floats, and the PET the bottle is made from sinks
3. Skim the HDPE off the top and store separately
4. Remove the remaining plastic from the bottom of the hot water bath
   • this should be PET plastic and labeling
5. Take the PET and labeling mix and put into another water bath containing caustic soda (sodium hydroxide or lye)
   • this removes the labeling which then floats to the top
6. Skim off the labeling
7. Remove and rinse the now clean plastic
   • rinsing cleans off the caustic soda
8. Dry the plastic