A to Z cover-inside pages - Angus Council

Plastic Bottle Waste Journey
Plastic bottles, including
juice, milk, sauce and
detergent bottles are
collected in your green
box or at Recycling Centres
and Points. They are taken
to the recycling and bulking
depot in Arbroath, known
as ACROP.
At the depot, the plastic
bottles are loaded into the
baling machine to be baled.
The bales are taken to a
plastic recycling facility
in Lincolnshire in the UK.
The flattened bottles are
cleaned and labels
removed. The bottles are
melted down and moulded
into new shapes, or
shredded into small flakes
to make granules.
The recycled plastic is used
to make a whole range of
new plastic products, such
as garden furniture,
compost bins, CD cases,
fleece jackets, plastic drinks
bottles and bin liners.
You can buy recycled plastic products in many high street and online shops.
Once you have finished with your plastic bottles put them in your green box
or take them to a Recycling Centre and the process starts again.
Plastic bottle facts:
• Angus Council sells about 36-37 tonnes of plastic
bottles every month.
• In the UK an estimated 13 billion plastic bottles
are thrown away each year.
• The 108,000 tonnes of bottles recycled in 2006 saved
approximately 162,000 tonnes of carbon.
• It takes just 25 plastic bottles to make a recycled
polyester fleece jacket.
Are they sent to China?
There are a number of plastic reprocessing factories in the UK, including the one we use in Lincolnshire. A proportion of
plastics are sent to China, but this is because they make many of the items that use recycled plastic. The plastics are
transported on returning (empty) container ships.
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