Turning plastic waste into a valuable resource
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Polymer Recovery converts post-consumer rigid and soft plastics collected from the domestic, industrial and farming sectors into polymer granules and pellets that are then sold to the domestic and international market. Over 90 per cent of the product is exported, mainly to Europe.
It also recycles rigid plastics including drums, wheelie bins, pallets, barrels, lids, buckets, crates, oil tanks, road barriers and road cones, post-industrial plastics and plastic slides and take car bumpers and plastic dashboards from ELV centres, thus helping the centres to meet their targets for recycling.
Recycled plastic costs less than 50 per cent of virgin plastic, so there are good financial reasons why manufacturers want to buy recycled plastic. Some manufacturers will use up to 100 per cent recycled plastics in manufacturing processes, but this depends on the end product.
More plastics sorting is taking place now so the the situation is changing so that it is easier to locate segregated plastics.
As post-consumer plastic is no longer a waste but a resource, it is worthwhile for operators to sort their plastics.
There is also the satisfaction that, by sorting the plastics, they are enabling it to be reused again by plastic companies. Many plastic companies want a closed loop system for their waste plastic, and Polymer Recovery can assist with this.
The market for recycled plastics is growing internationally because more plastic manufacturing companies are using recycled plastics in their production processes and because the world demand for plastic is increasing due to the growth of middle classes in the emerging economies of India, China, Russia and Brazil.
When combined with the ‘peak oil’ issue you can see what could happen to the price of virgin polymers in the future. If virgin polymers increase in price, we can expect a hike in the demand for recycled polymers and prices should also increase.