Plastic Alchemy Turns Garbage into Gold

Stopping into a convenience store on a hot summer's day to grab a cold iced tea or bottled water is an everyday ritual for contemporary consumers. Most of these drinks are packaged in plastic bottles, of which the vast majority are of the PET plastic type known to Taiwanese as baoteping (pronounced bao-te ping).

According to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Taiwanese use about 100,000 metric tons of baoteping every year. Given that the standard 600-cc bottle weighs about 25 grams, that calculates out to roughly 4 billion bottles a year. Even crushed flat, they could be piled up 1600 meters, equivalent to the Taipei 101 building three times over! That's pretty stunning.

After going through various steps, such as sorting by color, washing, and shattering, recycled PET bottles can be made into transparent or mixed-color PET flakes (photos 1 and 2 respectively), which can then be melted at high temperatures and made into pellets (photo 3) to be turned into yarn.

Although to the ears of a native speaker of English the bao-te part of the Chinese word baoteping sounds like it could come from the English word "bottle," in fact it comes from the acronym "PET." (Ping means "bottle," so the whole term translates out as "PET bottle.") PET stands for "polyethylene terephthalate," a composite material made from terephthalic acid (refined out of petroleum) combined with ethylene glycol (an organic compound).

The use of PET bottles on a large scale for soft drinks can be traced back to at least 1967. Before then most soft drinks came in glass bottles, which were heavy, awkward, and breakable, causing inconveniences for filling, packing, shipping, and unpacking. With this in mind, Nathaniel Wyeth, then employed by the DuPont Corporation in the US, began work to develop a plastic bottle that could hold carbonated beverages. PET bottles, for which DuPont received a patent in 1973, were the result.

PET bottles have many positives in their favor. They are solid yet resilient, and weigh only one ninth to one fifteenth of glass bottles of similar volume, yet are adequately resistant to heat and to acid and alkali. Because of their excellent insulativity and impermeability to air, they are better able to preserve the original flavor of the product. And by being transparent, they opened up new possibilities for creativity and novelty in packaging. Not surprisingly, within a few short years of coming on the market they took the world by storm, and quickly replaced glass as the favored bottling material of the soft-drink industry.

Swept along in the tide, in 1984 Taiwan soft-drink makers also began large-scale use of baoteping. Unfortunately, few people gave any thought to recycling in Taiwan back then, so all used PET bottles were considered nonsalvagable trash, and this had a serious impact on the environment.

Yarns processed from recycled PET bottles can be used to make clothing, carpets, bags, scarves, and a variety of other products, so their economic value is quite high. At a press conference for the 2010 Taipei Innovative Textile Application Show, firms such as Da Ai Technology (first and second at left) and Far Eastern New Century (first and second at right) focused attention on products made from eco-friendly yarns.

A situation of legal anarchy persisted until 1988, when amendments added to the Waste Disposal Act made the first steps toward addressing the PET problem. In April of the following year, the Taiwan Beverage Industries Association (TBIA) and baoteping manufacturers joined together to form a "Recycling Management Fund." The TBIA put up the money to create the fund, then two major manufacturers of PET bottles-the Far Eastern Textile Group and the Shinkong Group-invested in building the nation's first PET bottle recycling plant, forming in the process the "Taiwan Recycling Corporation" (whose name was changed in 2007 to "Oriental Resources Development Limited"). With these moves, the history of recycling of plastic bottles in Taiwan turned a new page.

In 1997, the EPA launched its "four-in-one" resource recycling program, which brings together communities, local waste removal teams, resource recyclers, and a system of recycling funds, in a search for opportunities for the reuse of solid-waste resources. In this scheme, the recycling funds play the key role. All manufacturers of products that end up as solid-waste resources-including cars, motorcycles, plastic containers, light bulbs, dry-cell batteries, electronics, and so on-have to pay a recycling fee to the EPA up front, which the EPA uses to subsidize companies that do the actual recycling.

How does this play out for PET bottles? Drinks manufacturers have to pony up NT$11.58 for every kilo of PET bottles used, and the EPA pays NT$5 per kilo to recyclers. In addition, once the recyclers have crushed the baoteping into "bricks" weighing 300-400 kilos each, they can sell them at a very tidy profit (PET bricks have recently been selling for NT$19 per kilo) to factories that reuse the plastic. Encouraged both by policy incentives and market forces, there has been a sharp increase in the energy invested by citizens and businesses in collecting discarded PET bottles and other solid-waste resources.

Taiwanese love soft drinks, consuming 4 billion beverages per year out of PET bottles alone. That's enough bottles, even after being crushed, to make a pile three times the height of Taipei 101. The photo shows PET bottles being processed at the Neihu recycling station of the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation.

Tireless promotion by non-governmental environmental groups and religious organizations has also helped the recycling mechanism to function better. And no single organization has had a deeper impact than the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation and its enormous corps of volunteers.

At Tzu Chi's largest recycling station in northern Taiwan, which is in Neihu, each day at 6:00 in the morning nearly 100 enthusiastic volunteers (almost all middle-aged ladies) report with admirable and reliable punctuality for some serious work. When dealing with PET bottles, they first pour out any unfinished contents, then sort them by hand by colors: transparent, green, and "miscellaneous." Next, they go to the trouble of unscrewing any caps and cutting off the remnant plastic rings around the necks (caps and rings being made of PE plastic, which is different material from PET), and finally stamp them flat to make it easier for the recycling plant to crush them into bricks.

With the support of its army of volunteers, Tzu Chi alone-with recycling stations all around the island-currently recycles a total of over 12,000 metric tons per year, accounting for a full one-eighth of the total for the entire nation.

In addition, as a result of information campaigns by government and environmentalists, the idea that trash should be separated has gradually taken hold among citizens, and as a result the quality, quantity, and reuse rate of solid-waste resources has steadily increased over the years. As for PET bottles in particular, EPA statistics show that the PET recycling rate in Taiwan is 97%, and that last year alone the total volume of PET plastic that was recycled surpassed 97,000 metric tons with the reuse rate at an impressive 83.7%.

Although there has never been any squad from Taiwan in the FIFA World Cup, this year (2010) an impressive nine teams sported strip made entirely from recycled PET bottles that were manufactured by Far Eastern New Century, Taiwan's leading-edge textile firm, using specialized fabrics of Far Eastern's own design. They included Brazil (shown in the photo) and the Netherlands (which finished second).

In what guise do PET bottles, in their tens of thousands of tons, reappear? The main answer may surprise you: as fabric made from polyester fiber.

Like nylon and rayon (artificial silk), polyester is a manmade fiber with broad applications. It is especially noteworthy in that it dries quickly, is very flexible, and holds shape well. Given that its texture is similar to wool, it is highly suited to being blended with materials like wool, cotton, and rayon, creating even more possible uses.

Interestingly, whereas on the surface there seems little family resemblance between plastic bottles and polyester fabric, in fact they have the same background: Both are processed from PET. Therefore, polyester fibers can be made not merely by starting with what is known in the industry as "virgin" petroleum material, they can also be "reverse" manufactured from recycled PET bottles.

Fanny Liao, the president of Oriental Resources Development Limited, the senior PET reuse firm in Taiwan, explains that after the reuse firm buys baoteping bricks from the recycler, they have to break up the bricks, do infrared screening to be sure that no plastics made from other materials are mixed in, wash the bottles, remove the labels, divide them by color, and-one by one-shatter each bottle into PET flakes less than one centimeter in diameter. Then the flakes are washed at least twice, put through "flotation" to remove impurities, spun dry, and-having arrived at a state which is about as close as you could possibly get to the "virgin" product-are sold to textile makers.

Ultimately, the textile firms melt the PET flakes at high temperatures to produce PET pellets, and then spin these into cloth for use in polyester goods.

Polyester fibers have many applications, and blend well with cotton or wool. They share the same "family ancestry" as PET bottles, so they can be "reverse" manufactured from the latter. The photo was taken at a Taiwanese-owned textile plant in Vietnam.

Compared to polyester fiber made from raw materials, the "environmentally friendly yarn" (let's call it "eco-yarn" for short) made from remanufactured baoteping produces 54.6% less carbon emissions and uses 40-85% less energy. There is, however, one relatively environmentally unfriendly thing: at the earliest stages, the bottles must be washed, and that takes a huge amount of water. The critical factor determining just how much water is needed is the cleanliness of the bottles themselves.

Fanny Liao notes that even in Europe and North America, about four to five metric tons of water are used up in washing each metric ton of PET bottles. In places where technology is less advanced or recycling work is not very thorough (for example, where bottles still contain beverages or even have pieces of trash, oil or butter in them), the amount of water used can reach eight or nine metric tons.

Yet, even though the amounts of water used are rather sobering, in these days when petroleum is getting ever more scarce, using PET bottles to make eco-yarn is still the best option for combining economic efficiency with environmental efficacy. Statistically, one kilo of eco-yarn can be made for every 70 baoteping, enough material for a carpet of 180 x 150 cm plus one adult T-shirt.

While PET bottles are often recycled into polyester goods, another recent trend has been to "reincarnate them in the same status as in their past life"-that is, to turn the old bottles into new bottles. Some firms in Taiwan are already doing R&D in this direction, and mass production is not far off.

Though remanufacturing with discarded PET bottles is highly efficient, material made from discards cannot, after all, get a grade of 100% in terms of quality. Almost inevitably there are other plastics mixed in, mainly polyethelene (PE, such as bottle caps) but sometimes even polypropylene (PP, like storage boxes) or polycarbonate (PC, as in baby feeding bottles).

Eddie H. Lin, the manager of the Filament Division in the Fiber Business Operations Center at Far Eastern New Century Corporation, the leader in manmade fibers in Taiwan, explains that when impurities get into PET pellets, the threads made from the adulterated materials break more easily. They are therefore suitable only for the manufacture of "spun thread," as inferior thread made by winding shorter threads together is known. This in turn is only used for less economically productive goods like quilt batting, carpets, non-woven cloth, or industrial-use fabrics.

"If you want to manufacture 'filament thread' that can be used to make cloth material of high economic value, you have to separate garbage very precisely right from the very start, and the bottles have to be sufficiently clean. But this is the most difficult part of the process to control," he advises.

Precisely because PET bottles, from the moment they are thrown into the recycling bin up to the moment they are made into thread, must pass through many hands and many steps, it is extremely difficult to meet the criteria just set out by Eddie Lin. This is why in most countries they limit themselves to remanufacturing only spun thread. For example, in China, which has the highest PET recycling volume in the world with 4.5 million tons of baoteping annually, more than 80% is suited only to making the lower-valued spun fibers.

With countries around the world caught in an eco-yarn quality bottleneck, how is it possible that, four years ago, firms in Taiwan began using recycled PET bottles to make the more challenging filament thread? Is there some secret that nobody else knows about?

"The answer is actually quite simple," says Fanny Liao. "We have been able to help downstream firms do the technological upgrading because we can rely on precise and thorough trash separation." Liao notes that after 20 years of information campaigns, Taiwan has gotten quite good at sorting out trash. When bottles of sufficient purity and cleanliness are available, the recycler's client firms only need to install machinery that can do a further step of sophisticated screening for impurities, and they can then manufacture filament thread that is virtually indistinguishable from that made directly from virgin raw materials.

Eco-friendly material made using the "3D weave" developed by Far Eastern New Century gives a three-dimensional feel where it touches the athlete's body. Because this weave allows air to flow in and sweat to evaporate out, the sportswear doesn't stick to the skin.

Once PET bottles are turned into fibers, the fact that the product is recycled becomes itself a selling point for developing higher-value-added fabrics for clothing. The environmentally friendly football team strips made by Far Eastern New Century that garnered worldwide attention is a case in point.

Zhao Songtao, a senior manager in the Knitting Fabric and Apparel Division at Far Eastern New Century, says that Far Eastern has long provided fabric to world-famous makers of sportswear like Nike and Adidas. As early as the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Nike-one of the official sponsors of the event-for the first time opened bidding for the fabric-design rights for team strips to firms outside of Europe, and Nike selected the innovative "3D weave" material developed by Far Eastern. Among others, the French national team, which finished second that year, opted for this material for their strip.

Zhao explains that "3D weaving" means that the side of the fabric touching the athletes' bodies is made with a criss-cross weave of alternating threading, creating a non-flat surface that gives a feeling of depth. When athletes sweat, the criss-cross weave allows air and perspiration to pass through, making these garments a lot drier and more comfortable than traditional smooth-surfaced ones.

Clothing made using this 3D weave was, as expected, a sensation at the 2006 World Cup. For the 2010 event, Far Eastern New Century went a step further and proposed team strips made entirely from recycled PET bottles. This idea fit in perfectly with Nike's desire to develop new products that would play to the conservationist trend, and Far Eastern once again won the highly coveted rights to design team strip fabric for Nike, bringing glory of Taiwan's own at these two consecutive global tournaments.

After going through various steps, such as sorting by color, washing, and shattering, recycled PET bottles can be made into transparent or mixed-color PET flakes (photos 1 and 2 respectively), which can then be melted at high temperatures and made into pellets (photo 3) to be turned into yarn.

Zhao relates that the World Cup team strips in 2010 used the same 3D weave that had received so much praise in 2006, but whereas in 2006 only one type of yarn was used, in 2010 two different yarns were mixed, using 144 100-denier threads and 24 50-denier threads. This greatly increased the flexibility, sweat diffusion, dryness and comfort of the material. Strips made from this new material, christened "Topgreen," are 15% lighter than their predecessors, the ventilation (or air permeability) coefficient has been increased by 7%, and the extensibility is 10% higher, but the unit price remained the same at about 77 (roughly NT$3311).

While the environmentally friendly team strips were a hit, Zhao admits that the process of making them was by no means problem-free. Yarn made from recycled baoteping simply cannot match the purity of polyester fiber made from virgin raw materials, and as a result it not only snaps more easily in the manufacturing process, it is more difficult to dye and to print on. The company had to rack its brains throughout the manufacturing process to solve such problems and only produced a successful new product after numerous missed shots.

Overall, the costs of production for the eco-strips work out at about 30% higher than if they were made from virgin raw materials directly. But the company still has high hopes for the recycled fiber market, and the value of production has been increasing at a steady rate of about 15% annually. "After all, the mainstream trend is toward greater protection of the environment. For instance, Nike has already announced that from 2015 on it will use recycled materials exclusively to make sportswear, and Adidas is hoping to follow suit. Since in the future demand is certain to keep growing, of course we want to keep our competitive edge in the market," concludes Zhao.

Polyester fibers have many applications, and blend well with cotton or wool. They share the same "family ancestry" as PET bottles, so they can be "reverse" manufactured from the latter. The photo was taken at a Taiwanese-owned textile plant in Vietnam.

A second trend in reusing baoteping is to "reincarnate them in the same status as in their past life." That is, after following similar recycling steps to those used for making fabric, PET pellets can be made once more into plastic bottles for soft drinks.

Oriental Resource Development chief Fanny Liao tells us that the majority of the containers made through this "bottle-to-bottle" remanufacturing technology are used for drinking water or other beverages, so in order to ensure the safety of their contents, there are very high standards for the cleanliness and purity of the recycled PET bottles, more rigorous than those for bottle-to-fiber. "Of course there are people who wonder if it is worth it to use so much water in the name of environmental protection. But from the point of view of reducing the volume of waste and reusing resources, this is a path that we would have to follow sooner or later anyway."

Fanny Liao adds that in Europe and North America, bottle-to-bottle is already becoming a major trend, and bottles made in this way even carry special labels which enhance the image of the maker and the product. In their efforts to get a slice of the environmental market pie, some beverage producers have even invested in their own recycling businesses. For example, Coca-Cola has built a very large PET bottle recycling plant in South Carolina in the US.

"The production chain formed by Oriental Resource and Far Eastern will soon become the first operators in Taiwan to develop bottle-to-bottle recycling and remanufacturing technology," says Liao. "We are currently applying for a food safety certification from the US Food and Drug Administration, and the new product will hit the market very soon."

From "bottle to fiber" to "bottle to bottle," the multiplying uses of remanufactured PET products signify the continued advance of environmental consciousness and technology in Taiwan toward new milestones. How can we employ our patience and creativity, while expending as few resources as possible, to give new life to even more trash? For mankind, which has for a long time now been tearing up the planet to seize resources from Nature, pondering the answer to this question can perhaps serve as a kind of penance.

The Tzu Chi Foundation does more to promote recycling than any other non-governmental group in Taiwan. Besides having recycling stations islandwide, the efforts put in by its army of volunteers make life much easier for recycling firms downstream. The photo was taken at the Neihu recycling station.

After going through various steps, such as sorting by color, washing, and shattering, recycled PET bottles can be made into transparent or mixed-color PET flakes (photos 1 and 2 respectively), which can then be melted at high temperatures and made into pellets (photo 3) to be turned into yarn.