Plastic Lid Recycling
We’re keeping plastic lids out of the ocean, and turning them into useable products.
We’re keeping plastic lids out of the ocean, and turning them into useable products.
Unfortunately, the big machines that are used to sort recycling in most councils are not designed to handle small lids, and as a result, these lids can contaminate other recycled materials, or end up in landfill.
We want to avoid that!
Please note: We have other locations that are keen to be collection points, but the collection point is only valuable if there are also volunteers who are willing to pick up the lids and sort them into their plastic types and colours.
The real heroes of this whole process are the volunteers who pick up the lids from the collection points.
Over many hours, these volunteers:
There are many different plastic types used in making lids. The two plastic types that are best for reusing are HDPE (#2) and LDPE (#4).
They are non-toxic thermoplastics that are easy to work with (for a full guide to different plastic types, read/watch this).
Our volunteers separate the lids into #2, #4, and other. The #2s and #4s go to the Geelong Tech School, the rest go to GT Recycling.
We put the lids through a shredder and granulator that breaks the lids up into little bits. These bits are then put into our Injection Moulding machines by students to create new products as part of our ‘Reuse Revolution‘ program. The great thing about sorting and using the #2 and #4 plastic is that these products can always be recycled again using the same process.
GT Recycling take the lids, sort them into the different plastic types, ensure they are clean and then process them into small pellets. These pellets are sold to manufacturers to make more products through injection moulding, blow moulding or extrusion. The lids can be recycled many times over in this way.
At the moment this work is being completed by a small number of volunteers. If there were more people able to contribute, this would make it easier for everyone. If you would like to be involved in collecting lids, cleaning them and sorting them, we’d love to hear from you!