HOW IT WORKS | Euro coins, Recycled clothes, Parmesan, Cutlery | Episode 20 | Free Documentary

the show that reveals how extraordinary items in our world are designed constructed and produced see the engineering that technology and big ideas that make the world go round find out how it works [Music] coming up designed to reduce counterfeiting that's intone euro looks impressive have you ever wondered how coin makers get their filling into the Centers pasta just wouldn't taste as good without it but did you know that Parmesan gets its flavor from briny water and if bending spoons is your thing find out how that bent into the right shape to start with [Music] but first in the UK we throw away billions of plastic bottles every year we're getting much better at recycling them but did you know that they can also be turned into clothing this amazing process starts here at the bottle recycling center the first stage is shredding when you throw away your bottle you often leave a small amount of drink inside shredding all the bottles releases the unwanted liquids so it doesn't affect the quality of the plastic the shredded bottles are then wrapped in cellophane and boxed up ready to be shipped around the world it may be rubbish to us but to the Chinese textile industry this plastic waste is a valuable commodity recycled bottles arrived from all over the world to feed the busy clothing industry sorting separates the clear plastic from the colored stuff clear plastic can be made into white clothes or material that can be dyed so it's extremely valuable most clear plastic bottles have colored lids and stickers on them but these have got to go so the bottles head for the baths the colored caps are made of a different plastic which floats a worker can then strain them off the top then there's a separate bath for the stickers but the workers have to be careful around this one it's corrosive caustic soda very bad for the skin but very good for removing labels after all their swimming what's left is a pile of clear plastic shreds but it's rather wet the next step is the ovens where it's mixed with some light colored plastics to produce white cloth you need some light shaded material in the mix the plastic will spend about 10 hours here in these rotating drums slowly drying out these workers have to maneuver their cart back and forth underneath the drums to catch the plastic as it falls out but they've also got to mind their heads on all the other spinning ovens so we've got our plastic bottles broken down and mix to produce the right colors but it's very hard to weave cloth from bits and pieces so another step is needed the mixture is sent through this rotating screw where it's heated to 270 degrees Celsius this melts the plastic but to make cloth we don't want a big lump you need thread the liquid plastic is forced through a sieve and emerges on the other side as great long strings which are collected in the container below we've now got thread but it isn't strong enough to make cloth yet first it must be combined and stretched several times while being heated this will bond the fibers together now it's taken ages to produce this material but the next part of the process is to tear it apart again the fluff that emerges is the raw substance you need to make polyester however that takes place in another Factory altogether so the workers here bail it up and send it on it looks like cotton wool but it's an entirely man-made substance created from your old bottles this machine scrapes it all onto a very rough cloth which is loaded here ready to be carded carding is where the bonded fibers are brushed together so they all lie in a similar direction which strengthens the material the sheet of polyester felt that emerges is now ready to be turned into thread these machines will tease it out they spin off mile after mile of pure polyester which is collected on these bobbins and finally we reach the point way around plastic bottles become cloth like a spider at the center of its web the loom draws in thousands of threads and weaves a new sheet of polyester to give it a smoother feel there are still two more processes to go through the first is very delicate this machine creates tiny loops on its surface the second stage is the opposite using a series of tough steel brushes these spinning rollers catch and tear all the carefully made loops the shredded surface helps give the material a soft furry feel making it far more comfortable to the touch so we've turned our recycled bottles into polyester at last now it's time to make some clothes using a roll of material stylists mark out the latest designs being as economical as they can with their handy template although they're profiting from your rubbish they don't want to create any more waste the pitas will then be sent to workers who turn your trash into the trendiest gear you can find on the high street so what started out as your rubbish was carefully sorted then shredded and turned into cloth that cloth was shredded into fluff spun into thread and turned into fashion from plastic bottles to polyester clothing heading for the Sun well if you're gone in Europe you'll need gyros they were designed to prohibit counterfeiting and use an external ring and a sophisticated sandwich of metal for the filling life of these high-tech coins starts out here at this enormous scrap metal junkyard where mountains of recycled copper are being prepared for use [Music] they're squeezed by an immense hydraulic ram which makes giant cubes of the stuff weighing in at 8 tons each they're then sent to the foundry where the copper is melted down molten copper leaves the furnace at 1,200 degrees Celsius emitting brilliant green flames but this is only the first step we've got the copper into a workable form but there's still plenty more to do first the metal must be cooled the two enormous slabs that emerge from the machine weigh 70 tons between them and you could press about 2 million coins from them in all a chopped up into 5 metre long chunks then it's time for some hot rolling to hot roll the metal it's heated to about 900 degrees Celsius that's the hot bit then the metal is pressed back and forth between a series of rollers to spread it out hot metal is far easier to manipulate than cold so by pressing it through the rollers the factory ends up with a really long sheet of copper this form is far better for making coins than a big lump the next stage is to clean the metal the heating and cooling have given the copper a dirty color so now it's scraped clean and once again it's sent back to the presses by the time they roll it up like a very shiny roll of toilet paper it's almost 400 meters long copper is just one small part of the technology behind one and two euro coins to buy a drink some chocolate or even a train ticket the Machine must know you've put the right money into it to the coins are measured and tested rigorously the most important test is how magnetic the coin is and that's the high-tech bit different metals have different magnetic fingerprints the two euro special characteristic is the filling for its hole this is made up of three layers of metal compressed together there's copper on the top and bottom and the middle is nickel to make this filling the different metals are fed into the machine and compressed together so hard they can't be separated from this sandwich of metal we can now start to stamp out some coins this press hammers the sheet 250 times a minute as it cuts the fillings for the big 2 euro coins if you look closely you'll see the nickel sandwich with copper alloy on top nickel in the middle and copper alloy on the bottom meanwhile in another part of the factory another machine is stamping out the outer rings these big hoops will be filled with the copper nickel sandwich the middles that have been removed will be returned to the furnace to start the process all over again the Rings are a little dirty but a quick bath in acid mixed with ball bearings grinds away the filth leaving them sparkling and ready to be turned into money so we've got our outer rings and we've already made up their fillings but there's still something missing all of our pieces are blank bits of metal a template has needed to turn them into coins the engravers job is to make the coin equivalent of a rubber stamp this permanently marks the value onto the coin use an industrial press he crushes a pattern onto the stamp block it exerts 160 tons of pressure so he's got to be very careful the stamps are hardened in this furnace at 870 degrees Celsius without this treatment the Motz heath would disappear very quickly once it's been hardened each stamp can engrave as many as 200,000 coins the surfaces are scraped clean using fine glass to remove any imperfections then they're checked and polished before being put to work the stamp is fitted into the machine however at this point we don't have any complete coins to stamp but everything's a banks have comes together the ring is put into place and the filling dropped into the hole the two are then placed under the stamp which hammers them together this both impresses the value onto the coin and compresses the two pieces together what emerges from the pipe is a brand new two euro coin ready to be spent [Music] so by crushing together some ordinary copper and nickel we end up with the elegant sophistication of the high-tech 2 euro coin still to come it takes about a thousand litres of milk and dirty bath and two long years to make the best cheeses but the parmigiano-reggiano is worth the effort and from bending spoons to sharpening knives we'll find out how the finest silver gets put together [Music] [Music] normally it's cows that are branded but this is parmigiano-reggiano from Italy often referred to as Parmesan cheese Parmesan does start with cows but it's only their milk we want this dairy in Mantova Italy uses half a ton of milk for each block of cheese it's made in these huge copper vats each one holds 990 liters enough to make two giant parmesan wheels those cows have a lot of grass to eat to keep up with production Parmesan is a hard cheese so the milk needs to be solidified the ideal temperature for this is 33 degrees to get the milk to solidify the cheese maker will use rennet this enzyme comes from calves stomachs and it's poured in and left for a while to work its magic [Music] because of strict European laws concerning trademarks parmigiano-reggiano can only be made in certain Italian regions this means each producer must make as much as they can because global demand is huge as the run it takes affect the head cheese maker will notice subtle changes in the milks consistency the workers keep a very close eye out so they know when to start the next step when the time is right they get to work using custom-made cutters they slice through the yogurt like substance breaking it into lumps this helps separate the cheese curds from the whey after three minutes of this the temperature is raised and the two parts separate the solid curds fall to the bottom leaving the liquid whey at the surface this custom-made knife costs over four thousand pounds and is designed to cut the big lump of cheese at the bottom of the tank in half in the parmesan business high-tech goes hand in hand with old school the cheese master now uses his big wooden paddle to lift the two halves so his colleagues can wrap them in cloth if they left a cheat at the bottom of the tank someone would have to climb inside to get them out this way is far easier the workers can now suck out all the old way making the tanks ready for the next load of milk once the cheese is removed it's wrapped up and the weight is put on top this squeezes out any excess fluid as a hard cheese Parmesan needs as little fluid as possible it'll remain like this for eight hours in a Teflon mold as the cheese spreads out this imprints the dairies name into the sides after about 24 hours the Teflon form is substituted for a metal one here it will sink down and take on the characteristic wheel shape with a flat top and bottom and curved sides after three days in their molds these cheeses could really do with a bath a salt bath this process actually improves their cheesy smell the cheese is left in this salty brine for a month before it's taken out to be dried this helps improve the cheese's final flavor [Music] once it's time to get out of their shared bathwater they make their way to the ripening room the contents of this room are estimated to have a total value of 17 million pounds and are freshly bathed Parmesan wheels are about to join them the wheels will spend up to two years in here maturing slowly but to avoid growing mold they have to be turned at least once every two weeks turning this many cheese's would be very dull and very hard so a robot is used instead although after doing this job for such a long time it looks like the robots could also do with some turning [Music] as it matures the snap keep a close eye on the cheese's using his official hammer the head cheese maker will tap on a random sample his expert ear knows the sound of a good parmesan from a bad one he'll also use a little corkscrew to test a sample and ensure the cheese is maturing nicely when he's satisfied it's up to scratch he'll fire up his trusty brand and mark the cheese from its humble beginnings via some rather dark and briny bathwater the world's favorite pasta topping is born knives forks and spoons have been around for a long time so every now and then the bespoke cutlery makers like to do a little experimenting this spork might just catch on but until it does it seems most of us are happy with a standard set of cutlery but just how are these implements put together modern Calvery can be made from a variety of substances at this factory they use steel which is plated with chromium nickel it doesn't rust and more importantly it doesn't affect the flavor of the food which some metals can do blanks are cut from a sheet of metal and this sheet is ideal for making both spoons and forks however at this point the metal is thick enough for the handle but too thick for the working end so it needs to be flattered to make spoons the ends need to be wider so the metal is pressed more often what the work ends up with looks like a miniature shovel hardly the right shape for soup so the shovel blade is cut into the right shape then it's put into this press which will transform it into a shapely bowl [Music] while the spoon bending is going on in one part of the factory other workers are forging forks again they need to shape the little shovels first so a press will cut off any unnecessary metal these blanks are now passed on to this worker who has the most important job in fork production all day long he sits here carving splines into the forks splines are the pointy bits you spear your food with washing forks as fiddly enough but if you're making luxury dinnerware you also have to make sure you wash the press before you can actually do any bending any dirt would mark the metal and the fork would have to be thrown out the freshly bent cutlery is then sent off for a quick polish to remove all the sharp edges the worker will also grind down the surfaces so there aren't any unwanted Fork related injuries so we've seen the forks and the spoons but what about the knives whereas forks and spoons are made from one piece the knife is made out of several the handles for these knives have two sides which will be joined together leaving a hollow in the middle the reason for this will become clear later but first we need a blade these are made up of stainless steel and need to be shaped so they're sent off to the furnace to be warmed up once they're hot enough the blacksmith will remove them with his tongs and hammer them into shape using a huge brass then using another press he will cut out the blades from the habit steel these are then fed back into the furnace so they can be hardened [Music] when they emerge that tough inside but filthy outside you certainly wouldn't want to use once a buddy its host with so they're sent to an automated grinder to be scraped clean now it's time to put the blade and handle together the two sides of the handle have been joined and the work it will now fill this with sand this gives the knife a good weight in the users hand next comes a quick pinch of resin and it's time to glue the whole lot together monkey sundae silverware just wouldn't do so this bizarre contraption helps in a line each knife molten metal is poured in with the sand the resin he added creates a bond between the two making the handles solid the blade then becomes a lid to seal the handle tight of course now everything is filthy again so the new cutlery needs a good shine [Music] what use would a knife be without a sharp edge [Music] while the blades are getting sharpened we can catch up once more with our forks and spoons which are now getting a plating they're given a bath in silver which gives them their luxurious final Sheen but of course different customers have different tastes if they want a brushed steel effect the cutlery makers use a tough Mexican grass to create this effect the grass grinds away the shine but leaves a nice textured finish however it's also left the cutlery rather dirty again so there's just time for one more quick dip to clean them off so the next time you're slaving over a huge bowl of washing up don't get bent out of shape leave the bending to the cut remaking experts [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 2,520,006

Rating: 4.695858 out of 5

Keywords: Euro (Currency), Euro Coins, How it works, Coin (Collection Category), Recycled clothes, Recycling (Industry), Parmigiano-Reggiano (Cheese), Cutlery, How It's Made (TV Program), How its made, Food (TV Genre)

Id: vxedZd7mk8I

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2014