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Plastics recycling and cutting through the “green smoke”
October 7, 2014
Plastics recycling and cutting through the “green smoke”
Willow Aliento | 7 October 2014
There’s an elephant in the room of the waste-to-energy industry: the majority of megawatts generated still come from burning fossil fuels, in the form of plastics, according to director and co-founder of Plastic Forests, David Hodge, who will be a panellist at the Australian Waste and Recycling Expo this week in Sydney.
Mr Hodge’s company aims to reclaim a significant part of those resources through a world-first process for upcycling plastic film, including plastic shopping bags and packaging films, into a range of useful products including electrical cable covers, root guards for trees and garden edging.
The company began as a project within Global Renewables in Sydney, one of only two Australian firms taking “red bin” general household waste ? including organics for compost, batteries, aluminium and plastics ? and processing it into a number of streams of recyclables.
Mr Hodge said the company found that out of the 250,000 tonnes a year of waste it was processing from three Sydney council areas, about 10 per cent comprised plastic films. A lengthy research and development process was carried out, resulting in the creation of a new independent company with a facility based in regional Victoria.
The new company produces upcycled plastic products under the Green Mongrel brand as well as pelletised plastic for other manufacturers.
Read more at The Fifth Estate.
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