If you saw my last week’s blog you may have noticed that I mentioned downcycling and MRF pronounced “MURF”. This week I will provide an in-depth explanation of what those two terms mean.
To begin, downcycling in simple terms is plastic that is being reused, however, the quality is getting reduced each time. In the short term, The short term sees the strong benefit of downcycling, including, prolonging the life of plastic, and keeping it out of landfills. However, as the plastic is downcycled it becomes structurally weak which only allows it to be downcycled one or two times before collapsing. Oftentimes, at this stage, plastic is used in clothing, etc. However, as I understand it, if you need to use it for something that requires a stronger structure, you are forced to add better plastics which counters the positives of downcycling.
On the contrary, upcycling is the process of plastic getting better in quality. Due to its extremely low cost, countries of lower socioeconomic statuses prefer to utilize this method to recycle. This also has other benefits such as less plastics in landfills, reduced air pollution, and a lot of energy saved.
Finally, this brings me to my last topic, MRF. It is pronounced “MURF” which stands for materials recovery facility in this facility, factory single-stream plastics are prepared and separated to be sold. The process is as follows, recyclables are collected and brought to MRFs and loaded on conveyor belts. Then it is sorted by gravity on an inclined conveyer belt that sends paper up, and containers down. Then they are brought to the “sorter” aka a bunch of workers that hand sort the recyclables for things that cannot be in the final load. Steel items get picked by large magnets that send them to a 3rd location. Back to the paper conveyer belt, plastic bags can also travel through these; however while they are recyclable, it is best to bring them to a local grocery store where they will get sorted correctly. On the container belt, aluminum is sorted by bouncing them into a separate container using gravity, and also using gravity heavier bottles ie glass is broken into another container where they are shipped to glass recycling facilities. Then the rest of the materials are squished into big blocks weighing close to 2000 pounds. . manufacturers purchase these blocks to make their products.
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