To achieve a higher percentage of plastic bottles to be recycled, great efforts are required from their manufacture, to achieve greater recovery of materials such as PET and HDPE. The following are some practices or recommendations that manufacturers should follow for plastic bottle recycling.
Automation
From the moment the packaging is designed and manufactured, it is necessary to consider that many of the recycling processes are automated, that is, it is a robot that evaluates the classification of the packaging, whether it is placed among the recyclable materials or is sent to the landfill.
Labels
As we know, regularly all packages have paper or plastic labels, as mentioned above, in the automated processes a robot is the one who decides whether or not they are suitable for recycling, then, a label not correctly removed can be the cause of an incorrect decision in the recycling process of plastic bottles. The solution to this problem necessarily concerns the end consumer; we need the consumer to remove the label when placing the container.
Form
Many companies, as part of marketing or brand positioning, decide to create a particular container that identifies them, this undoubtedly has a positive impact, since having a packaging that characterizes them, it is possible to use a smaller label, which, firstly, saves material costs and, on the other hand, helps the robot to have less range of error.
Size
Another of the characteristics that must be taken into account for the correct recycling of plastic bottles is the size of the container once it has been crushed; manufacturers must ensure that it is at least 2×2 inches since the sorting robot generally discards sizes smaller than this.
Lids and labels
Two things are very important that the final consumer must learn, one of them is the removal of the label since intuitively it will not be done, a campaign that promotes it is suggested and, in addition, add it in the instructions. On the other hand, once the container has been applied, put the cap back on, in this way, contamination is less likely and therefore, increases the chances of plastic bottles recycling.