# Is it true that recycled plastic bottles are never remade into new plastic bottles?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 9, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291 "2011-05-09T16:53:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/1 "2011-05-09T16:53:58Z")
In
> **[Extreme Couponing and taxes](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607689)**
>
> Last week, I saw an episode of TLC’s “Extreme Couponing” where people buys hundreds of dollars of groceries for a few dollars. What I’m trying to figure out is this possible in other states, mostly East and Midwest were shown, where you’d run into...
we see
“The middlemen then either clean them (the re-usable bottles, which started the whole system) and sell them to the drink manufacturers for re-filling, or (with one-way plastic) sell them to be shredded and re-manufactured into fleece sweaters or durable plastic bags.”
I remember reading somewhere else that plastic bottles, after recycling, don’t get re-made into new plastic bottles, but are made into durable goods.
Why can’t they be re-made into new plastic bottles?
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/2 "2011-05-09T17:23:25Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> In
>
> [Extreme Couponing and taxes - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607689)
>
> we see
>
> “The middlemen then either clean them (the re-usable bottles, which started the whole system) and sell them to the drink manufacturers for re-filling, or (with one-way plastic) sell them to be shredded and re-manufactured into fleece sweaters or durable plastic bags.”
>
> I remember reading somewhere else that plastic bottles, after recycling, don’t get re-made into new plastic bottles, but are made into durable goods.
>
> Why can’t they be re-made into new plastic bottles?
PET can’t be heated enough to sterilize the bottles without destroying them. so they’re just shredded and re-melted into feed material.
glass can be, so they’re washed, sterilized, and reused.
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/3 "2011-05-09T17:30:41Z")
missed the edit window…
if your question is more about why they can’t re-melt it and mold new bottle blanks, I would think it’s too expensive for them to keep the various colors of plastic segregated during recycling, so they just lump it all together and use it for stuff that’s not color-sensitive.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/4 "2011-05-09T17:31:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> PET can’t be heated enough to sterilize the bottles without destroying them. so they’re just shredded and re-melted into feed material.
But the OP isn’t asking if the bottles get sterilized and re-used. It’s asking if the plastic _does_ get turned into fresh stock for new bottles. You seem to be saying that it is.
I don’t know one way or the other. I would suspect that it was, although I could see that worry about inclusions might make it not usable, especially if coloring material had been added (and you wanted a transparent bottle).
The Wikipedia article says that the PET is sorted by color, and implies (although it doesn’t explicitly say) that it gets re-used for bottles:
> **[PET bottle recycling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_of_PET_bottles)**
>
> Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the most common polymers in its polyester family. Its global market size was estimated to be worth 37.25 billion USD in 2021. Polyethylene terephthalate is used in several applications such as; textile fibres, bottles, rigid/flexible packaging, and electronics. However, it accounts for 12% in global solid waste. This is why bottle recycling is highly encouraged and has reached its highest level in decades (33% in 2023). In 2023, the US collected 1, After...
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/5 "2011-05-09T17:34:13Z")
This site says that PET is recycled into bottles, but that most of it isn’t:
[http://www.container-recycling.org/facts/plastic/PETstraight.htm](http://www.container-recycling.org/facts/plastic/PETstraight.htm)
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/6 "2011-05-09T17:37:41Z")
CocaCola requires from it’s bottlers that a certain % of the polyester in its bottles come from recycled PET.
ETA: that apparently was a goal, of Coca Cola, but no longer: [http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential\_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302](http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302)
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/7 "2011-05-10T10:27:22Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> CocaCola requires from it’s bottlers that a certain % of the polyester in its bottles come from recycled PET.
>
> ETA: that apparently was a goal, of Coca Cola, but no longer: [http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential\_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302](http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302)
The article does say that Coca Cola “remains committed to our goals of sourcing 25% of our PET plastic from recycled and/or renewable material by 2015, and to recover 50% of the equivalent bottles and cans used by 2015.” Though how they plan to do it, I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@balfour2011](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/balfour2011)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/8 "2011-05-10T10:45:03Z")
I don’t agree with the fact that it cant be reused…now a days number of houses are made of plastic bottles…I think nice this is a nice use if waste bottles.😉
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### Author:  [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/9 "2011-05-10T11:31:07Z")
Bottles are definitely made from recycled PET. Montclair, a Canadian brand of bottled water, is bottled in containers made entirely from recycled PET. They’re dyed a light blue, presumably to hide possible colour variations in the recycled resin.
Unfortunately the inclusion of dye might render the bottles unusable for my personal favourite means of repurposing plastic bottles: [solar water disinfection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection).
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### Author:  [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/10 "2011-05-10T11:42:32Z")
My understanding is that plastic bottles aren’t made of a single type of PET. Rather, they are formed from several layers, all PET but each a different grade with slightly different properties. In particular (depending on the bottle type) there might be an inner lining layer that prevents CO2 from escaping or O2 from entering. So even with perfectly clean bottles that are all the same color, it isn’t quite as easy as shredding, melting, and re-forming.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/11 "2011-05-10T12:12:33Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> CocaCola requires from it’s bottlers that a certain % of the polyester in its bottles come from recycled PET.
>
> ETA: that apparently was a goal, of Coca Cola, but no longer: [http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential\_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302](http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/residential_recycling/resrecycling-report.html?id=1303222302)
That recycled PET might not necessarily have to come from recycled bottles though. It could be virgin-material trimmings from other PET manufacturing processes, for example.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/12 "2011-05-10T12:14:03Z")
> [@balfour2011](#):
>
> I don’t agree with the fact that it cant be reused…now a days number of houses are made of plastic bottles…I think nice this is a nice use if waste bottles.😉
Nobody said it couldn’t be re-used.
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### Author:  [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/13 "2011-05-10T12:17:33Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#):
>
> My understanding is that plastic bottles aren’t made of a single type of PET. Rather, they are formed from several layers, all PET but each a different grade with slightly different properties. In particular (depending on the bottle type) there might be an inner lining layer that prevents CO2 from escaping or O2 from entering. So even with perfectly clean bottles that are all the same color, it isn’t quite as easy as shredding, melting, and re-forming.
I’ve never heard of this, and I work in a facility that manufactures plastic bottles. The bottles are straight PET resin, from one source silo, which is injection moulded into small (approx 3" long) test-tube shapes called preforms. These performs have the neck finish (the cap threads) that you’d expect on a full-size bottle, but have very thick walls and a volume of maybe 15-25 ml. They are then fed into a machine called a blow moulder, which heats them, inserts them into a cavity mould, where high pressure air stretches the plastic until it conforms to the mould shape, becoming a bottle.
There’s no means for an ‘inner lining layer’ to be inserted in these preforms, or inserted during the blow mould process. What you may be thinking of is the ‘T’ in ‘PET’ (polyethylene terephthalate); PET is a combination of those two chemicals as straight PE (polyethylene or polyester) is permeable to gases and therefore useless for holding carbonated beverages. The addition of terephthalate makes the bottle impermeable, but it’s not a ‘layer’.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/14 "2011-05-10T12:18:31Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#):
>
> My understanding is that plastic bottles aren’t made of a single type of PET. Rather, they are formed from several layers, all PET but each a different grade with slightly different properties. In particular (depending on the bottle type) there might be an inner lining layer that prevents CO2 from escaping or O2 from entering. So even with perfectly clean bottles that are all the same color, it isn’t quite as easy as shredding, melting, and re-forming.
This may be true for some specialist applications, but I don’t think it’s the case for the common-or-garden plastic bottles in which water and soft drinks are sold. The manufacturing process consists of injection-moulding a bottle blank, from single type of material (the blank looks like a test tube), then heating and inflating the blank into a mould.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-recycled-plastic-bottles-are-never-remade-into-new-plastic-bottles/581291/15 "2011-05-10T13:25:53Z")
Most PET bottles used for water, carbonated soft drinks (CSD), juice, etc. are mono-layer (one PET resin) bottles, that are produced using injection molding to make the preforms. The preforms are usually then blow molded into the preferred shape.
PET beer bottles and specialty high heat containers, normally use a multi-layer bottle.