Plastic recycling in the spotlight this World Environmental Day
He said plastic is almost in everything we touch on daily basis.
June is National Environment Month, with June 5 being World Environmental Day.
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This year the spotlight is on plastic pollution with the theme being #BeatPlasticPollution and calling for global solutions to combat plastic pollution.
According to World Wide Fund for Nature, South Africa generates 2.4 million tons of plastic waste every year, equivalent to 41kg of plastic waste per citizen.
Plastic pollution is a serious challenge and harmful to the environment.
There are, however, companies who are making a difference in trying to keep plastic from ending up in the environment.
GCN recently visited Tufflex in Germiston which has proven to be an innovator when it comes to plastic recycling.
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We wanted to see the life of plastic and how it gets recycled, reused and made into something useful.
Micheal Carlsson, general manager at Tufflex, took us on a tour. They process both post-industrial and post-consumer polyolefin plastic waste.
They also produce recycled timber, which is used as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to wood.
“We produce a variety of applications including furniture, pallets, fencing, dog kennels, dustbins and decking,” said Carlsson.
He said plastic is almost in everything we touch on a daily basis.
Stages of recycling plastic:
There are a series of stages needed to recycle plastic which involves collecting, sorting, and reprocessing the plastic ready to be used in new products.
Collection: recyclers collect household rubbish. They then sell it to a buyback centre and Tufflex buys from such a centre. A 400kg bale is worth R2800.
Sorting: the plastic then gets sorted according to colour and different types of plastic.
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This process is done manually. Non-recyclables and contaminated material are removed and sent for further processing
Reprocessing: plastic is washed, dried and ground into flakes. The washed and sorted plastic is sent through shredding machines where it is ground into smaller pieces of plastic.
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Extrusion: the plastic is melted and extruded into pellets this is the final stage of plastic recycling. Pellets are then sold to manufacturers to make plastic products.
