Introduction

• Every day grocery stores in the United States give hundreds of thousands of plastic bags to their customers to carry groceries home in. Although not all of these make it to a recycling center, the many that do are given a new lease of life as one of two main products: composite lumber or resin.
  
  

Products

• Composite lumber is made up of a solution of 50 percent plastic bags and 50 percent sawdust. It is used for a variety of construction projects ranging from door frames to outdoor decking. The plastic bags can also be made into a plastic resin. This resin can then be used to either make new plastic bags, or can be used in a host of other plastic containing products.
  
  

Process

• Once plastic bags have reached a recycling center, they are melted down in a large heated vat. After the plastic has melted, it is pressed through a machine called an extruder. The extruder forces the plastic into long pole shapes, or into small resin pellets depending on the recycling facility and the next step of the process.
  
  

Final Product

• For plastic bags being reused for composite lumber, the melted plastic is mixed with sawdust and shaped into boards. These boards can then be cut, treated and sold to hardware stores. If the plastic is destined to be remade into new plastic bags or other plastic products, the resin pellet form of the melted plastic bags will be shipped off to different plastic factories across the nation.