What Happens With Your Cans And Bottles Once They Leave The Recycling Depot in Adelaide

June 04, 2021

After spending weeks recycling your bottles and cans, you’re probably wondering what happens to them once they leave the recycling depot in Adelaide. Most of the magic happens when you take the bottles and cans to the recycling depot. We all know that the end goal of recycling is to repurpose old items into new useful products .

However, the question is, what processes happen to your cans and bottles after they leave the recycling depot? They are:

They are picked up

Once your bottles are submitted to the recycling depot, they are usually submitted and then placed into bales. After this, they are usually picked up by manufacturing companies. 

Manufacturing companies usually prefer to use recycled bottles and cans because it saves them money and resources. Recycling depots usually have deals with specific companies, so the company they deal with will come to pick it up.

Once they pick it up, they take it back to their company and repurpose it into different things. So what happens with your bottles and cans once they leave the recycling depot usually depends on the type of company that picks them up or what they can be turned into. 

So from here, we’ll move to what happens to bottles after they leave the recycling depot.

Bottles

People submit different types of bottles for recycling. As you can probably tell, some bottles are usually harder or softer than others. So the manufacturing companies usually buy the bottles they want to repurpose. Most times, these companies have machines that clean out the bottles again to ensure they are super clean. After they’re cleaned, they begin to remove the labels. After the bottles are totally decontaminated, they are melted and broken down into tiny pieces. It is these tiny pellets that manufacturing companies use to make anything they want to. For example, they can turn the pellets into plastic bags or wraps, milk jugs, new bottles, and plastic containers. 

Cans

The recycling process of cans only differs slightly from that of bottles. There are two types of cans. Aluminium cans and steels cans

• Aluminium cans: Just like bottles, the cans are cleaned to decontaminate them. After that, the colour coating that’s painted on the cans is melted away. The aluminium cans are then melted in a huge furnace. After which, they are used to make lightweight materials such as car parts.

• Steel cans : The recycling process of steel cans slightly differs from that of aluminium cans. The steel cans are melted in a furnace with iron and blasted with oxygen. They are then rolled into coils which are the final end product. These steel coils are used to make new products such as cars, new cans, construction steel etc.

The recycling life of a bottle and can is usually very long once it leaves the Adelaide recycling depot. Recycling depots play a huge part in the quality of bottles and cans that’s recycled.

Looking for a trustworthy recycling depot, you can recycle with in Adelaide? Thornton’s recycling is here for you. Contact us to can set up a recycling schedule that works for you and your business!