“We all know it’s a good idea to recycle, but what happens to that aluminum can or all that paper after you put it in the recycling bin? Where does it go? What does it become? In its second life, how does this water bottle become a backpack, jeans, or shoes, or even a WM shirt?”
This promotional video from WM, Waste Management, goes inside a Material Recovery Facility, called “a murph” for short, to see how trash is collected, sorted, sorted again, and then compressed into giant bales.
One of North America’s largest waste management services, WM has partnered with Repreve to help turn the refuse into other products. In the promo video below, plastics are processed into small pieces called nurdles before being transformed into recycled polyester fibers.
“This process is all about creating this circular economy where everything is being reused and recycled so that less stuff ends up in a landfill.”
Related: The first two Rs in the 5 Rs are Refuse and Reduce.
Watch more reuse and recycling videos on TKSST, including:
• How Trash Is Recycled
• The Big Sort: An Insider’s Tour of a Recycling Plant
• The Life of a Plastic Bottle
• Making a new felted kimono coat from recycled sweaters
• Turning plastic bottles into football jerseys
• Recycling plastic waste to make bricks that are stronger than concrete
Bonus: How this Japanese town is working to produce zero waste
Plus, don’t miss Milly Zantow: Recycling Revolutionary.
Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.