Every day, three and a half tones of plastic dumped into the ocean, from the mouth of the Black River at Cape Town. Facing the appalling data, many people are planning to do something. Some free divers, as well as volunteers, have launched an initiative named Sea The Bigger Picture aiming to clean plastic garbage and protect the ocean. Each time, those volunteers remove half a ton of PET bottles on the beach, which will be recycled soon.
There are still many tourists who throw plastic bottles on the beach. For free divers, plastic pollution has seriously impacted their joyful diving in the water. PET bottles can exacerbate global warming because they are made from petrol and fossil fuel. PET debris on the beach can be ingested by marine animals such as turtles, birds, and fish, causing harm to their digestive systems and potentially leading to their death. Plastic can also entangle animals, such as birds and seals, leading to injury or drowning. What’s worse, many people are fond of seafood. It seems that human beings’ damage on Earth will finally rebound on ourselves.
To tackle the plastic pollution issue, volunteers have been cleaning the beach for several years. The best method to deal with PET bottles is to recycle them so that they can become new products again, ensuring environmental protection and further achieving circular economy.
As individuals, it’s beneficial for us to learn how PET bottles are recycled:
The collected PET bottles will be sent to recycling sites, where the PET dewater will remove the liquid left in the bottles to make sure the bottles are clean and dry. Then the bottles are ground into flakes which are washed and sorted again. These PET flakes can be melted down and turned into new products, such as new bottles, clothing, carpet fibers, and packaging materials.
Every year, over 100 million marine animals are affected by plastic garbage. Keep in mind that dropping off PET bottles and other plastic garbage on the beach can cause great damage to the ocean and further impact human beings. The awareness of PET recycling should be deeply rooted in everyone’s mind.
There is more information about recycling on INTCO Recycling homepage, be free to learn more!