Geography with Grammarsaurus - The Life Cycle of a Plastic Bottle

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Transcript:-

We know that it is important to reduce the number of plastic bottles we buy and that we should reuse then recycle them after use. But how is a new plastic bottle even made?

The process begins with an oil rig, where crude oil is extracted from underground or from the seabed. The oil is then pumped through long pipes to an oil refinery. Here, the raw material is separated into various useful products. One of these – naphtha - is chemically combined with gases and bonded to form plastic pellets. These pellets are transported by road to manufacturing plants where they are melted. The resulting liquid is poured into moulds to create plastic. After that, the plastic bottles are filled, capped, labelled and packaged ready for distribution to shops. After a bottle has been purchased, opened and its contents used, it is hopefully washed and reused.

At some point, the bottle will inevitably reach the end of its usefulness. Thereafter, its future is determined by human decisions.

Did you know that the UK currently recycles only 44% of its plastic waste?
If the bottle is discarded inappropriately, it could end up littering the environment or buried in a landfill site where it will take hundreds of years to decompose. As the product breaks down, it releases polluting toxins.

Unfortunately, some plastic bottles end up floating in the sea where they become dangerous microplastics that enter the marine food chain.

For a bottle that is disposed of via a recycling point, its life continues. In fact, the same plastic can be used 2 or 3 more times to make new bottles.