DIY plastic recycling plant
In 2017, Lower Hutt business Flight Plastics opened New Zealand’s first PET plastic wash and recycling plant. Flight Plastics turns the recycled plastic into RPET flakes and uses the flakes to make new food-grade packaging. In 2021 the Pact Group acquired Flight Plastics and continues it's work under the name Pact Packaging.
Flight Plastics recycling plant in action
The only PET recycling plant in New Zealand, Flight Plastics sorts, washes and granulates plastic bottles and packaging to recover PET plastic to be reused in new food-grade packaging.
In 2021 the Pact Group acquired Flight Plastics and continues it's work under the name Pact Packaging.
In this activity, students use Hub resources to design and operate their own PET plastic wash and recycling plant, loosely based on the Pact Packaging process.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
use written and visual resources to gain information about the plastic recycling process
discuss some of the steps involved in processing/recycling a PET plastic item
place the steps in the order they are likely to happen
design a model of the recycling process using familiar, everyday materials
discuss how the model represents the actual steps in the recycling process
consider how recycling fits into the use and reuse of plastics.
Download the Word file (see link below) for:
background information for teachers
equipment list
teacher instructions
student instructions.
