KZN recycling depot aspires to create a cleaner future
Each of the 'green bricks' produced at the recycling depot help divert 9.8kgs of glass and 4.2kgs of plastic from landfills.
THE Waste, Innovation and Solutions Hub (WISH) was launched to much fanfare at the Wildlands Recycling Depot in Howick last week.
WISH has been enabled by Dow, The Pyrolysis Group and USE-IT, a Durban-based recycling non-profit.
At the launch, an extra-ordinary brick machine, glass crusher and pyrolysis machine were unveiled.
The ‘green brick’ the machine produces uses no water, cement or sand during its production and is a world first.
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The 14kg building brick is made from 30 per cent plastic and 70 per cent glass. The machine can produce 200 building blocks per day and diverts 9.8kgs of glass and 4.2kgs of plastic, per block, from landfills.
“The glass crushing machine allows us to crush glass on site and separate it into four different grades,” said the Wildlands Recycling Manager, Hanno Langenhoven Langenhoven.
“Some of the glass goes into our bricks and we are currently exploring other potential markets. Different grades of glass have different applications, from use in golf course sand bunkers and sand blasting, to chemical and water filtration.”
With a small-scale reactor and a small-scale refinery, the plant is also able to turn plastic into a fuel.
“We have successfully demonstrated that we can turn polypropylene into plastic fuel and that it can be used to power a diesel vehicle,” said Langenhoven.
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