How much does it cost to recycle plastic bags ?

Plastic exists in our daily life in different forms from hard pipe to soft plastic bags. You may have heard that plastic bags are recyclable, but how much does it cost to recycle plastic bags? Does plastic bags recycling have economic interest?

Waste plastic bags

It will be a very meaningful project to collect and recycle soft plastic like plastic bags and films. You know, during the municipal waste recycling process, normally plastic bags and plastic films need to be separated out firstly, because plastic bags and films are very flexible and they can easily wrap around the shaft or rollers of the feeding and selecting system, and then slow down the process of recycling.

Then what is the cost of recycling plastic bags ?

There are about 3 ways of plastic recycling, and they are respectively landfill, plastic material recycling as well as plastic thermal pyrolysis into fuel oil. Landfill and plastic material recovery have been widely used as the way of waste plastic management. The cost of recycling plastic bags and films by way of landfill is very less, but this way cannot bring you any economic interest. Also there is a problem with landfill, as it can take up to 450 years for plastic to break down (to biodegrade), which cannot really solve the plastic pollution problem.

Waste plastic landfill

The cost of recycling plastic bags by way of plastic material recovery is quite high. Plastic material recovery is mainly through pelleting. Waste plastic bags and films should be cleaned, shredded and palletized before returning to the production channel at the mixing or manufacturing stage. It is costly to start.

By contrast, cost of recycling plastic bags by pyrolysis is the most economical way. Recycling plastic bags into fuel oil is easier and less cost to start. You just need prepare a piece of land and install our waste plastic pyrolysis plant is ok. No need to clean and shred the plastic bags, which can help you save a lot of man power and machines. The power of our batch 10ton waste pyrolysis plant is only 15kw, and it is very energy- saving, because during pyrolysis process, the syngas recycled to heat the machine and save you a lot of heating energy. The oil-output of plastic bags can be around 60%, which mean from 10ton waste plastic bags, you can get 6ton fuel oil, the wast plastic bags should be free and just cost you to collect it. You can imagine how profitable it is to recycle plastic bags through low power and energy saving waste pyrolysis plant.

Waste plastic pyrolysis plant

More about cost of recycling plastic bags, please feel free to contact with us.