1. Part 2 Making new plastic sheets

2. Step two – making the new plastic
Now you know how the pellets are made, here’s how they get from this
to this

3. These are the pellets produced from recycling old plastic bags and bottles.
As you can see, they can be all different colours depending on the recycled materials they are made from.

4. The black bags used for GYOP are made from white recycled plastic so they need to be mixed with black dye pellets.
For green bags, a green dye would be added at this stage.

5. The pellets and dye are mixed and heated to make liquid plastic.

6. The liquid plastic is first spun at great speed in here.
It is then forced out and up, by cold air that flows up the centre, making a large tube of moving plastic.
The cold air cools the plastic into solid plastic.
The liquid plastic is first spun at great speed in here.
The bottom of the tube is still soft. By the time it gets to here, the plastic has firmed up.

7. A system of rollers above the machine, pulls the plastic up high towards the ceiling, allowing it to completely cool before it is flattened.

8. Once cooled the flattened plastic is brought back down again, where it is stored on large rolls.
The plastic is now beginning to look like the black plastic ‘grow bags’ you use in school to grow your potatoes.

9. Here is Sue from GYOP with the finished rolls of plastic.
These rolls are now ready to go to the final machine for the last stage of the process.

10. See Part 3 Making the GYOP grow bags