How a tote's HDPE bottle is recycled

From bottle to flake

Every step of HDPE recycling is mechanical. The bottle is separated from its cage, the valve and fittings come off, and the bottle is shredded into flake. The flake is washed, rinsed and dried, sorted by colour and density, and sold as regrind. Natural white flake, the clear milky colour of an unpigmented bottle, is the most useful.

This is how a tote's plastic becomes new plastic products. The plant buys the flake, not the tote, so the bottle has to arrive empty and free of anything the wash line cannot lift.

What keeps a bottle out of recycling

• A heel above the rule. A bottle with an inch of product left is not empty, and it is waste.
• An unknown last product. A plant cannot wash what it cannot name.
• Contamination that soaks in. Some solvents and dyes stay in the plastic. The flake carries the colour or smell into new goods.
• Mixed materials. A bottle still held in its cage, or one with a metal fitting, has to be separated before it is shredded.

A bottle that held a food ingredient has the best odds, and one that held a hazardous chemical has the worst. The Empty Check is built around that order.

Resin code 2

Resin code 2 is the chasing-arrows triangle with a 2 inside, molded into the bottom of an HDPE bottle. It names the plastic, not a guarantee that a plant will take the bottle.

The same marking is why this site uses a molded triangle as its mark. The cage has no code, because steel is sorted by magnet and by eye. See cage and bottle for the other half of the tote.

Reuse comes first

Recycling is the last lane of three. A bottle with an intact wall, a sealing valve and a known history should be reused or reconditioned before it is shredded. An intact bottle can earn repeat fills, and shredding it ends that. Regrind is for the bottle that cannot do that again.

The recycling hub lays out all three lanes. All-plastic totes are a separate case, because they have no cage to separate.

What contaminates regrind

Regrind buyers refuse bottles with a stain that bleeds, a heavy film of product and a mix of resin types. A label of a different plastic or a metal fitting left on the bottle can also be a problem. Remove the valve and the cage before sending a bottle, if the recycler asks.

Why colour matters less than clarity

HDPE totes are usually translucent white or natural. A bottle stained dark by a product is harder to sell as regrind than a clean one, because the colour carries into the pellet. A natural bottle is more valuable than a stained one, though we name no price.