Another Approach

There is a financially viable way to have working plastic cards recycled without harming the environment. Here at Envirocards™ our perspective differs from others when talking about recycling. For instance we believe we can take a card and return this plastic to be recycled.

We do this by:

-Using as high a quantity of recycled materials in production as possible without sacrificing quality.

-Providing a facility in which the cards are returned to be recycled easily.

Recycling cards not only saves on the amount of new plastic made, but also on energy used in production. Did you know that recycling one ton of plastic saves 16.3 barrels of oil? [1]

If they choose to, plastic card manufacturers have the ability to recycle all of every card they send out, and manufacture new cards from 50 – 80% recycled plastic. Plastic used in this system can then be reused to make household goods, plastic pallets and industrial products.

Why only 50 – 80%?

To fully understand why we can only use a certain amount of recycled plastic, first you must know a little about card production;

Plastic cards are actually made up of a number of layers which are laminated together to form the card.

-A PVC inner that gives a card its shape, size and has the artwork printed on it. (core)

-Two laminates that are on both sides of the card, they protect the card and give it its glossy finish.

During production, the two laminates are placed over the PVC and heated so they melt into the core and form the finished product.

Unfortunately the laminates cannot be sourced from recycled materials, this is due to the need for them to be clear. Trials in the past have shown that constructing the laminate from recycled materials leads to a white ‘fog’ in the laminate, rendering the information displayed behind it unreadable.

As seen in the diagram above, the two laminates account for roughly 20 – 35% of the total volume. This means that while the card can be recycled in its entirety, only 50 – 80% of it can use recycled materials.

[1] http://recycling.stanford.edu/recycling/caq_benefits.html