Old plastic’s new life
A GEELONG plastic-recycling company’s innovation pipeline is starting to push out new solutions to major waste problems.
GT Recycling had to dramatically rethink its business model when China, which had been taking about 90 per cent of its low-grade recycled plastics, started moving towards banning imports of the products.
Its answer was to invest more heavily in research and development, new technology and working collaboratively with industry and university researchers to find new uses and additional markets for recycled plastic.
The Moolap company’s business manager, Doug McLean, said GT Recycling was at the forefront of producing recycled materials for a raft of new products in the process of being proven.
“We would hope there is one entering the commercialisation stage in the next three months, which we believe will be a world first … and several others within 12 months,” Mr McLean said.
Although the Chinese ban on the import of recycled plastic was implemented two years ago, GT Recycling began preparing for the change a few years earlier.
“Our direction was to be able to add more value to our raw material in Australia and then sell it into the Australian market as a competitive, quality recycled raw material for manufacturers,” he said.
“One of the fundamentals in the recycling business, particularly in Australia, is being able to recycle products that can only be sustainable if there are genuine end markets for the resultant recycled material product.
“Part of our strategy has been to develop new markets for much of our product. That has been driving our innovation.”
In 2017 it commissioned a $2.6 million state-of-the art recycling system that can recycle about 1500 tonnes of flexible polypropylene packaging a year, adding significantly to the company’s overall production capacity and capabilities.
Among its uses is to recycle grain bunker tarps, often left to decay on farms, and the company is now working with a major grain cover producer in giving the recycled plastic a second life.
Another project involves a collaboration with road construction company Fulton Hogan incorporating recycled plastic into a new asphalt mix. More than three tonnes of recycled plastic were used in the resurfacing of 1.5km of road near Lorne.
Mr McLean said GT Recycling had targeted plastic waste that had previously proven too difficult to recycle.
“There is a range of plastic waste that industry requires to be recycled that is not due to the technical complexities of the waste or recycling process,” he said. “That’s probably where we see ourselves getting involved – in the `too hard’ areas.”
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