Walking down the street or within many buildings, you may see these odd-looking bins with a circle of arrows on them. Of course, these bins are not mysterious, and neither is their purpose. We use recycling bins to send our unneeded plastic, glass, and paper to the magical land of recycling factories, where they are converted into those “recycled” products we love to buy.

The recycling process, however, is not quite as simple as magic. As a matter of fact, it is a complex process that requires the use of highly-specialized machinery.

There is a recycling process for dozens of materials, but, to keep it simple, I will only begin by discussing the recycling process for a commonly used material: plastic. Furthermore, this discussion will likely miss some information on the process. For a more complete picture, let these posts serve as a gateway to research – and feel free to start with the included references throughout the entries.