Tales From The Bin

The Story of an Aluminum Can:
To make an aluminum can, bauxite mineral ore (mined from South America since North America has already mined all of its known sources) is processed at very high temperatures using massive amounts of energy. Once the process is complete, it is then rolled and pressed into thin sheets which are then cut and made into cans and other aluminum products.
On the brighter side, aluminum is one of the most easily-recycled and widely-accepted materials for recycling. Recycled cans are crushed, then new sheets of aluminum are made and cleaned for processing into new cans. And the benefits are numerous: recycling aluminum cuts related air pollution and reduces energy consumption because less mineral mining, shipping of ore, and heat energy are used during the refining process.

The Story of a Plastic Bottle:
While there are over 50 different types of plastic, most of it is made by refining oil (petroleum) into a resin. Manufactures buy the resin, mix it with colorants and other chemicals, and shape the mixture using molds or hand blowing. Once the plastic hardens, you’ve got your plastic bottle, tray, or container.
Since there are so many different types of plastics, manufacturers label these containers using a number inside a triangle symbol so that consumers know what type of plastic they have. To recycle plastic, it is basically shredded into small flakes, which are then cleaned, dried, remelted, and turned into plastic pellets for reuse.
One of the benefits of recycling plastic is that no new crude oil is needed in the process, so the need for oil drilling is reduced. It also saves on energy consumption.

The Story of a Newspaper:
Paper, used to make everything from your local newspaper to your school textbooks, is made of cellulose, a component of plant tissues and fibers. Trees are chopped into smaller pieces that are made into pulp. Then heat, electricity, and water are used to boil and separate the wood fibers from the lignin (or the natural binder and support for cellulose fibers of wood plants). The fibers are then beat into a mixture and bleached with chlorine (brown papers are not bleached). Starch is added to the fibers to help it blend together. Then it is dried and wound onto giant spools.
Not only does the paper-making process require trees to be cut down and energy to be used to transport and process the wood, but the bleaching process produces dioxin, an environmentally-harmful by-product.
When paper is recycled, it is shredded and then mixed with warm water, heated, and mashed into a pulp again. Foreign objects such as paper clips and string are removed and the ink is dissolved using a solvent. Then the pulp mixture is bleached again, using less bleach since the pulp has been whitened once already.
Recycling paper cuts down on the amount of trees that need to be cut, transported, and chopped up to supply our country’s paper needs. Also, using recycled, non-bleached paper (some types have visible fibers) eliminates the bleaching process, thereby reducing the amount of dioxins produced during paper making. In some paper mills, alternative bleaching methods are used.