I-Plas Blog
The Zero and the Hero
In my last blog I raised the question of why we ship waste around the planet for recycling and this question has some added poignancy when you read what has turned up in Brazil. Famous for its Mardi Gras, rain forests and prodigious footballing talent, Brazil is now the repository of 1,400 tonnes of toxic waste from Britain.
It's shocking that the Brazilians have to contend with 80 containers of our rubbish, which incidentally now has to be collected, but from my point of view equally shocking is the claim that the containers should have contained waste plastic for recycling. Surely we have the ability to clean up after ourselves in our own back yard? What a complete nonsense to send an oil-based material 5,000 miles by sea using more oil to be recycled and then potentially shipped back.
We have a system at i-plas called 'closed-loop' recycling where we collect waste plastic from customers, convert it into something useful and then supply it back to them '" all on a local basis. The Brazilian example is stretching believability and the loop beyond all reason.
And so we turn to the hero, Gerald Corbett, formerly Chief Executive of Railtrack and now Chairman of soft drinks manufacturer, Britvic. I learn from the Daily Telegraph this week how important energy and carbon management is to Britvic and the massive strides they have made.
A 5m investment has seen the reduction of packaging in all its bottles, saving 1,600 tons of plastic every year. Changes to shipping and distribution methods have saved 50 tons of cardboard, 70 tons of corrugated board and 89 tons of shrink wrap in a year as well. There's more but suffice to say they have the bit between their teeth.
At i-plas our recycling plant is a hungry beast needing, currently, 6,000 tons of waste plastic to keep it well fed and happy. Mr Corbett will be interested to know that his old organisation, Railtrack, now known as Network Rail, are working with i-plas to make recycled rail sleepers '" probably containing the odd Robinson's bottle. Here is an example of another enlightened organisation that is actively searching newer and better ways of managing assets, energy and emissions.
In the early days I guess sleepers may have been made from hardwood shipped from Brazil, latterly concrete has become the alternative and now recycled plastic waste from Britain is the possible, environmentally sensitive solution.
So keep going Network Rail, keep at it Mr Corbett, and keep recycling local.
