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Pollution caused by plastics is, contrarily to what might be thought, mainly visual. Plastic pollutes no more or less than any other object which becomes waste when no longer useful.
Nevertheless, it is very important to mobilize everyone
to gather and recycle all plastic products over their
life cycle. There is a growing concern among individuals
to recycle all materials (and plastics in particular) as
shown by the 34% increase Sociedade Ponto Verde has had
in plastics gathering in 2007. This increase corresponds
more to 8,536 tons gathered in relation to the previous
year.
RECYCLING OF PLASTICS
Steps taken with plastic are the same as for other types of waste: whenever possible,
separate used packaging and put it in a special recycling
container.
More than an obligation, recycling is becoming ever more a matter of individual and civic responsibility, and therefore we should all adopt the following code of conduct:
Recycle all used packages!
Types of thermo-plastic recycling:
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Primary: the material does not lose its characteristics (the raw material can be re-used for the same purpose);
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Secondary: the recovered material cannot be used for the same purpose, but it can be used for other lower-specification purposes;
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Tertiary: in cases where the recycled product is at the end of its life cycle, the material can be used to produce chemical products (for example, it is possible to extract the compounds necessary to produce detergents).
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Quaternary: consists
in obtaining energy from plastics, through controlled burning to obtain heat and electrical energy.
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