Gable top cartons are made from a layer of board sandwiched between two layers of very thin plastic. After collection the cartons are baled at recycling depots and then trucked to a paper recycling factory. In this machine, the cartons are broken up and the plastic and foil separates from the paper fibres. The fibres are extracted and filtered to remove minor contaminants and can be used directly, without bleaching, to make high quality recycled office and copy paper. The residual mixture is fed into a huge rotating drum with mesh on the outside.
Water passes through the mesh, leaving the plastic and foil behind.
As the rotating drum slopes downwards, the plastic and foil continues to move along the drum until it falls into a pit, where it is collected, baled and finally discarded. The water is usually recovered and reused. All aluminium soft drink and beer cans can be recycled apart from those with steel ends. Aluminium cooking foil can also be recycled. Aluminium cans that have been collected for recycling are first sorted and then baled into bricks.