Gallery: Trash Is Ugly, But Recycling Is Downright Beautiful
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Industrial polyurethane residues and handling fleece trim will be shredded for reused in everything from protective packaging, acoustic insulation, dairy mats, and shock pads.
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Green glass shards await to be melted in a glass factory to make bottles for the beverage industry. They were collected from households and industrial companies by a specialized glass sorting and recycling company.
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Compressed beverage cartons made of cardboard, polyethylene, and aluminum sit in a specialized paper factory. During the recycling process, each material is isolated. The cardboard is made into paper products like paper towels and toilet paper. The aluminum and PET are sent elsewhere for recycling.
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Specialized companies inspect used tires and prepare them for the second-hand market.
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Recovered pyro-cables to be used in critical installations—to protect pipes from freezing and to maintain the temperature of process piping and vessels.
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Radiators from scrapped cars contain copper and other metals. They are separated in a pyro-metallurgical process to be reused. The cinders that result from the process are reused to stabilize concrete in road construction, among other things.
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Scraps of aluminum are compressed into large blocks laced with golden lacquer used for beer can packaging. At a recycling smelter, the lacquer is burned and the molten aluminum is recast into new blocks that can be used to make new cans.
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Recovered circuit boards are shredded, then melted in an oven. Through special pyro-and hydro-metallurgical processes, precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, as well as lead, copper, antimony, tin, bismuth, nickel, indium, selenium, and tellurium, are recovered.
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Automobiles wait to be shredded. The metal will be used to make new steel.
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Used windshields wait to be recycled. The process involves separating the glass from the plastic laminate layer that keeps the windshield from shattering. The processed glass can be used to make new windshields, while the metal is recycled in the metal industry and the plastic is reused in roofing and carpet glues.
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Tinned copper wire from copper-wire producers used in electrical motors.
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Old cellphones are shredded, then melted in an oven. Metals are extracted for reuse. Thirty-five thousand mobile phones will yield approximately one kilogram of gold, five kilograms of silver, 150 grams of palladium, and 350 kilograms of copper.
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Decorative and process glass made from recycled flat glass. They will be used to make transparent glass bottles or architectural flat glass.
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Organic waste from food, gardens, and diapers are collected from households and companies. They are mixed with an inoculum to increase aeration, and the compost is sieved. It will be used as compost in the agricultural sector.
