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Plastic Bags
The average household produces 8.88 kilograms of Plastic Bags per year. Plastic Bags consists of 2.46% of the total waste stream and locally 44.93% of all plastic bags produced are recovered.
Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is the largest single polymer type in household use. It is estimated that from 33 to 40% of all plastic packaging in the home is LDPE. Most of this is used in plastic bags like grocery sacks, milk bags and pouches, bread bags etc.
What is Acceptable? Plastic film (bags) made from low density polyethylene (LDPE) are acceptable for collection.
How to Prepare Material: Gather plastic bags together into one bag, remove all cash register tapes and other materials and place beside or on top of blue box for collection.
What Happens after the Material Leaves your Blue Box? The plastic film that is collected from the blue boxes is sorted into the same compartment as the paper fibres on the collection truck and brought back to the Bluewater plant in Huron Park for sorting and processing.
Upon arriving at the plant, the recycling truck dumps the paper fibres compartment, which includes the plastic film material, onto the tipping floor. From there the material is moved along a series of conveyor belts that move the material to a sortation line, where material handlers are responsible for removing the plastic film material from the sortation line. This film material is then baled and stored until there is enough material for a load.
What Happens after the Material Leaves Bluewater? Material that is baled at the Bluewater Recycling Association plant is shipped to manufacturers where it is recycled into pellets which are then purchased by polyethylene film manufacturers. They, in turn, use this raw material to produce an array of bags for household and industrial uses, including:
Household Applications:
Industrial Uses:
For more information, click here for another fact sheet. |
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