How to Recycle

By Saraniya Raveendra from MCKINNON PUBLIC SCHOOL

Do you know of another area to throw out garbage?
 
Well, if you guessed recycling, you are correct! Recycling means reusing things that can be used again. Recycling is a way not to waste everything you have. If we don’t, then we could run out of our supplies. Well, how do we recycle?

There are many things you need in the recycling process. You need a
recycling bin, paper products, recycling carts, energy, raw materials, a pulper, a paper machine, and a cone-shaped cylinder. These are things required in the process of recycling.

Firstly, if one uses a paper product, DO NOT scrunch it up. Throw it in
the recycling bin, because it is better for the environment.

Next, the paper product travels to the recycling center. They trade paper
products with cash.  

Then, residents use recycling carts to take the paper products. After that,
they clean and separate the paper products.

Later, it is taken to the paper mill.  There is a pulper that chops the paper
down into small pieces. The heat shrinks it more, and the old paper changes to pulp.

Mills clean the pulp in the large cone-shaped cylinders, where it gets spun. Things that are not mushy, like staples, go in the garbage after it is removed.

Sometimes, the pulp must go through a “pulp laundering” operation, which
is called deinking. This process is used to remove in and sticky stuff, like
glue. There are two types of deinking: washing and flotation. The process of washing is when little areas of ink are removed. Flotation is when larger areas of ink and sticky stuff are removed with air bubbles.

The pulp is beaten to make the recycled fibres swell, making paper.  They will be bleached with hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide, and oxygen, to make it whiter and brighter.
 
The clean pulp is ready to be paper now. The pulp is mixed with water and chemicals, to make it 99.5% water.  There is a huge, flat wire the pulp goes on and it moves very quickly. The machine that does this is called the paper machine. Then, a person takes out the water in the pulp and heated
metal rollers dry the watery paper and a coating smoothes out the paper.

Finally, the finished paper will be removed from the paper machine.  One roll can be thirty feet wide and weighs twenty tons. The paper will be cut into smaller pieces. As a result, the recycled paper is made.

Recycling is important to learn because the garbage spreads toxic waste everywhere, which is poisonous. We wouldn’t want to spread toxic waste everywhere. Recycling is a safe way to throw out all your scrap paper.


Illustrations by
Saraniya Raveendra