Penticton men exploring unique recycling project that could help aborad
Decades of experience and a desire to help others power a Penticton-based project with potential to provide employment for girls and women abroad and to help the environment everywhere.
The concept behind the project — chipping water bottles made of No. 1 plastic and using the chips in construction — is simple but the required technological processes and related marketing are not.
Ron Ryde, who has an extensive background in mechanics and marketing, and Grant Bogyo, a retired psychologist, have combined their talents and with the help of friends have taken the initial crucial steps in the project.
Ryde and Bogyo own NetZero Enterprises Inc. which holds patents on their various projects.
The project developed gradually over 40 years of overseas volunteer work, however, two specific occurrences helped to crystallize the idea Ryde explained.
Ryde never forgot a woman in Zambia, Mary, who implored him to develop a way for local women and girls to have an income.
“When you get home, don’t leave it alone,” he remembered her saying.
Several years later, Ryde was in Haiti. “The poverty is unbelievable and there are tons of plastic water bottles everything — along streets and in ditches,” he said.
The increasing world-wide problem of pollution caused by plastic bottles is compounded by China no longer accepting them.
While relaxing one evening with other volunteers, he held up a water bottle and said, “Why can’t we make rebar from these bottles right here in Haiti?”
No. 1 plastic is as strong as rebar.
The availability of rebar is often a limiting factor in the construction of mud-brick buildings common in the tropics.
“That’s so crazy I bet it will work,” said a volunteer from the U.S. who as a mechanical engineer developed parts for Volvo.
The next evening Ryde talked about the need for an extruder to combine fibre with the plastic.
Another U.S. volunteer said he ran an extruder.
“The Good Lord touched me on the shoulders and told me to do something — now,” Ryde recalled.
In Canada and the United States, recycling of water bottles comes at considerable cost to the environment.
As an example, bottles in Penticton are transported by truck to Vancouver, then to Calgary and eventually to Ohio where the bottles are made into various saleable items.
“With intact bottles you are basically transporting air,” Bogyo said.
An average transport truck can haul 78,000 bottles. The same truck can carry 2.2 million chipped bottles.
The savings in fuel cost and the decreased impact on the environment are obvious.
In Penticton Ryde has spearheaded the construction of a chipping machine made from used material and parts.
The bottles go into an extremely hot water which crystalizes the plastic and removes labels and debris before entering the chipper.
The resulting material enters a water trough where the desired chips sink and unwanted material floats.
A regional district and a municipality in B.C. are interested in chipping their own No. 1 plastics and then making value added products Ryde explained.
In developing countries, the inexpensive equipment would be easy to assemble, and the sale of chipped bottles would provide an income for the women operating the machine.
“To make rebar we basically mix chips from recycled No.1 plastic bottles with an organic fibre and run it through an extruder,” Bogyo said.
The fibre of choice is bamboo. Bogyo has had experience with bamboo in humanitarian projects in the Philippines.
The economics of rebar production are promising — five one litre plastic bottles equate to approximately one foot of rebar.
Spinoffs from the project are being explored by UBCO scientists along with Bogyo and by the companies which have contacted ZeroNet Enterprises Inc.
An example of potential use is replacing the 10 percent sand content in cement with chipped plastic which would help alleviate the world-wide shortage of sand.
“Their drive. That’s what impressed me the most,” said Rob Sutherland, who worked closely with Ryde and Bogyo in the production of “Bottled Up,” a documentary about Ryde and his team and their goal of building a portable micro-recycling plant.
The full-length documentary is available on TELUS Optik TV and on TELUS STORYHIVE You Tube.
The video is also posted on The Herald’s website: pentictonherald.ca