Suzhou Oude Science&Technology Co.,Ltd

TRENTON — The state Department of Agriculture will collect plastic pesticide containers for recycling program at three South Jersey locations, Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher announced.
 
The department will have 21 separate collection days April through November at collection sites in Hammonton (Atlantic County), Deerfield (Cumberland County), and Woodstown (Salem County).
 
“We have seen an increasing interest in recycling agricultural materials, especially plastic pesticide containers, in recent years,” said  Fisher.  “This recycling program offers pesticide applicators and businesses a free, easy and responsible way to dispose of these containers that once would end up in landfills.”
 
Last year’s collection exceeded the amount collected in 2008 by 111 percent. To date, more than 115,000 pounds of plastic pesticide containers have been kept out of the landfills.
 
Launched in 2002, the program, a cooperative effort between the Department, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, Helena Chemical, Cumberland County Improvement Authority, Salem County Improvement Authority, and the Salem County Board of Agriculture, collects plastic pesticide containers from all categories of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection licensed pesticide applicators and custom application businesses.
 
Among the uses for the recycled plastic are fence posts, pallets, underground utility conduit, speed bumps, parking stops, marine pilings and field drain tiles.
 
All three collection sites also will be accepting clean cardboard since the pesticide containers are distributed in cardboard boxes.
 
In addition, the Department offers year-round mulch film and drip irrigation tape recycling and has information on recycling nursery pots, plastic flats, trays, and cell packs.

developed a way to break down plastic bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate — or PET, and recycle it back into high value uses like more soda bottles, water bottles, beer bottles. Inside the recycling plant’s extruder, water is removed from ground up plastic. Then, the plastic is melted and chemically broken down — in a process called depolymerization. The breakthrough in this process is to be able to go from chips of this plastic to the recycled material in about five minutes.

Here’s a loaded question — do you recycle? Even if you recycle — do you know where your plastic bottles go? Are they made into more bottles or something else? The answer may surprise you!

Recycled bottles are not made into new bottles — they’re used for lower grade plastics to build things like playgrounds — but a new machine may change that!

“What you want to do, ideally, is take that material and recycle it back into high value uses like more soda bottles, water bottles, beer bottles”, said George Roberts, a chemical engineer at North Carolina State University.

Roberts and his team developed a way to break down bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate — or PET. Right now, this type of plastic is non-biodegradable and costs too much to recycle back into food-grade bottles.

“You’re trying to complete that loop, then you don’t have to make new bottles,” said Joan Patterson, also a chemical engineer at North Carolina State University.

Inside the recycling plant’s extruder, water is removed from ground up plastic.

Then, the plastic is melted and chemically broken down — in a process called depolymerization.

“This is where the reaction begins and continues along the length of the extruder this way,” said Patterson.

“The breakthrough in this process is to be able to go from chips of this plastic to the recycled material in about five minutes,” said Roberts.

Good news considering Americans go through two and a half million plastic bottles every hour! Every year we make enough plastic to shrink-wrap Texas ý and most of it ends up in our landfills. But if every American household recycled just one out of every ten plastic bottles they used, we’d keep 200-million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year.

The Material Research Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.