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From Checkout to Recycling Plant. Shopping bags at a Wal-Mart checkout counter (left) are returned by shoppers, baled and sent to processors, like this one (right) in Morristown, Tenn., for recycling.
Collection. Shopping and garment bags, as well as packing materials, are gathered at nearly 3,500 Wal-Mart locations (top left). Baling. Bags, hangers and other recyclables (center top) are flattened in a baler, located in the back of the store (center left). Bales, encased in cardboard, are tagged (center bottom) to prevent theft. With high demand from China, recyclable materials have become more valuable, commanding high prices on the black market. Shipping and Sorting. At the stores, as much as 40,000 pounds of bales are piled onto trucks and transported to regional centers called "material recovery facilities." On delivery, bags are sorted from other recyclables and baled again to be shipped to a recycler.
Shredding. Plastics recyclers load bags into shredders (left), which grind them into fluff (top right), which is then converted into pellets (middle right). Pellets into Products. Pellets are molded into new objects, such as shopping baskets (middle left) and patio stones (bottom right). Because plastic can't be recycled repeatedly, it gets used in products that have long lifespans.