Once built, Site Zero will be the largest plastics recycling plant in the world, able to process 200,000 Metric Tons yearly.
This site will elevate their ability to sort from 4 types of plastics to 12 different plastic materials. They envision being able to recycle 95% of the waste plastics (up from only 47%).
Well done Sweden Plastic Recycling!!!
They have set a high bar for other countries to follow. Now we just need to work on getting more of our plastics actually sent to recycling, instead of just being trashed or discarded, where it can end up in the oceans and waterways.
I watched the first video about the plastic in the great pacific garbage patch, back in 2009, and since that time I have generally not thrown out ANY plastic. This even included plastics I would come across when say, eating out or having fast foods.
I instead have collected it and stored it till I could take it in for recycling.
This has even included plastics not taken by local municipality. For these plastics, I pay for them to be recycled by http://pmdrecycling.com.
I regularly follow and support https://theoceancleanup.com/ and am excited about their river interceptors. They are concentrating on stopping the plastics BEFORE they get into the ocean.
But what if you could be part of the solution in your own home.
Even though I am a strong promoter of recycling and reducing our plastic use (especially single-use), I have to admit that the storage of the plastics is an issue.
I dedicate a large bin in the kitchen and then a large schafer sized bin in the garage. But these are always a mess as the plastic pushes itself back out as it expands after depositing. It takes up a lot of room and is difficult to get into a manageable package size to take to recycling.
I recently came across an consumer appliance from One Clear Drop, that pre-processes film plastics into a tight, partially melted, block.
With the SPC (Soft Plastic Compactor), Once Clear Drop is allowing the consumer to be part of the pre-processing solution. These 'bricks' would reduce the volume needed at the recycling drop off centres, prevents cross contamination, prevent recycling conveyor maintenance, and reduce bacterial growth on plastics waiting for processing.
Those that know me well, know that I have worked hard to divert the plastics accumulated in my build and daily life, away from the landfills, and into the recycle stream, to do my part to better use these resources and to keep the plastics out of our oceans.
Over the last year I have been following The Ocean Cleanup team as they develop successful technologies to extract the plastic accumulating in our Ocean's Gyres. Earlier this month they advised their first successful capture of ocean plastic in the Pacific.
Today, during a live press conference, they announced a three year secret side project that involved studying the worlds worst polluting rivers (the source of the Ocean's plastics) and developing technologies to clean it up before it enters the ocean. Today they introduced their new fully autonomous barge, The Interceptor, that will be deployed in rivers throughout the world that will clean-up virtually all of the plastic flowing past it. This is phenomenal work!
