ERS317 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Glass Recycling, Plastic Bottle, Downcycling

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Environment and Resource Studies
• Course: ERS317
• Professor: John Jackson

Document Summary

This is a pretty massive topic do the readings on learn. Where you take back materials & you process them to regain human use. You break it down to it"s original state through a process (i. e. glass back to granules) break down to raw materials and combine them again to make a new product. When you reuse something, you don"t have to break down the material/object. You are cleaning it or fixing it up. You"re not demolishing it to make a new product. Green cart program include a wide array of organic wastes. Once you"ve collected recyclables, they go to facility. This can become a quite elaborate process. Sorting (reusable parts, hazardous materials, crts) size reduction vibrating screen magnetic separation (ferrous metals) eddy current seperation (non ferrous metals) density separation (plastics) disposal (landfills) You want to separate the different types of recycling. Working in these facilities can be dangerous as people put the wrong things in their bins.