The troublesome waste stream that is soft plastics

The troublesome waste stream that is soft plastics

Posted on June 9, 2022 by DrRossH in Plastic Recycling

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Soft plastics are the bane of the waste industry. Hard to collect, a noxious and hazardous substance to the environment, and an item that can take up a lot of time in Material Recovery Facilities when being recycled.

Like politics and religion, everybody has an opinion on what should be done about them. But industry sectors are unanimous on two things  – something needs to be done about soft plastics and it needs to be done now; and they are an underused resource that can have a myriad of uses if recycled properly. This includes anything from converting it back to its original form oil, through to making it into such things as park benches and bollards, or even putting it into part of the mix when laying bitumen for new roads.

“Within 10 years we’ll have a recovery rate of 80 per cent of problematic, challenging plastics going back into either alternate fuels, new products like benches, bollards and roads, but most importantly will be going back into new things like packaging – food grade and non-food grade,” he said. “The value of what we are doing can be measured in monetary terms as well as socially and holistically.