Plastic waste recycling in progress: watch out for the bags

Help save the environment:

by Rosanne Koelmeyer Anderson

A sleek symbol of modernity and human progress, the invention of plastic has arguably touched many lives.

You simply have to live with it. Since plastic is easy to manufacture, strong and durable and a good insulator to boot, it has made its inroads against more traditional material like natural fibres, wood metal and rubber. In many cases, the more traditional products have moved upmarket, while plastic has cheerfully occupied the humdrum, unglamorous niches.

Plastic has replaced old and familiar things, the elegant dark heaviness of desks tables and chairs have given way to lighter, pastel coloured furnishings, changing the look of homes and offices. Plastic is perfect for the modern age.

It is light, strong, easily moulded and durable, and recycling is gaining momentum where plastic can be used over and over, remoulded to form new food and drink containers, waterproof bags, carpets, industrial paints, flower pots, fences, benches and other products.

The Central Environmental Authority in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources together with the Plastic Partnership Committee identifying the urgent need to recycle plastic had an inaugural launch of a National Post Consumer Plastic Waste Management Project recently at Sri Rahula Balika Maha Vidyalaya in order to protect the environment by collecting waste plastics for recycling.

M. Rizvi Majeed, Project Director National Post Consumer Plastic Waste Management Project, said the project will focus on three major issues namely the organising of collection of garbage on a regional basis, organising the empowerment of recyclers as a network and conducting awareness and promotional campaigns.

The collection of garbage will commence in the Colombo and Gampaha districts through 31 local authorities where every household will be given three bags, one for plastics, for bottles and paper respectively, which will be collected and sent to the warehouse and recyclers. In addition, permanent structures will be made in public places such as schools, bustands, railway stations and supermarkets for collection of plastic waste.

An awareness program will be laid down. So if you are in the Colombo or Gampaha Districts; watch out for the bags and dispose of your plastic waste and help save the environment.

Existing private recycling companies and even NGO's have pledged their support and assistance towards implementation of a successful project.

The improper disposal of plastic for polythene waste has prompted the authorities concerned to draw up a national program to manage the issue. The unsystematic use of plastic has affected the bio-diversity in our country.

The main cause of this being the non degradability of plastic and polythene. The destruction of these materials is most beneficial to mankind and it reduces the population. Recycling can be economically beneficial to the country.

There are a few recycling plants in Sri Lanka today, but the main impediments in successfully making these plants work to its maximum capacity is the lack of raw material, namely plastic waste.

Plastic pollution is now inevitably entering the food chain, with the most obvious casualties being seabirds and other marine animals. Hydrocarbon plastics are made from numerous petroleum based chemicals and additives, of which many have proven to be carcinogenic and have harmful effects on the balance of animal life.

It is said that more than 1 million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and even more fish die in the North Pacific alone every year. Of course, it's not just marine animals that are subject to this pacific burden.

People too, are exposed to a potentially deadly mix of plastic chemicals and additives and prone to cancer - causing illnesses, problems with reproductive toxins, phthalates, and BPA, which disrupts the endocrine system which inturn could cause obesity, decline in fertility rates and other problems.

If you are looking for a reason to adopt a more natural, healthy lifestyle, avoid these dangerous plastic chemicals in your life namely storing your food in glass, not plastic, avoid processed food which is stored in bags with chemicals and give up on plastic shopping bags.

The term 'plastics' encompasses organic materials such as the elements carbon (C), hydrogen (H), Nitrogen (N), Chlorine (Cl) and Sulfur (S) which have properties similar to those naturally grown in organic materials. Organic materials are based on polymers, which are produced by the conversion of natural products or by synthesis from primary chemicals coming from oil, natural gas or coal.

The plastic production process begins by heating the hydrocarbons in a 'cracking process.' Here, in the presence of a catalyst, larger molecules are broken down into smaller ones such as Ethylene (Ethene) C2H4, Propylene (Propene) C3H6 and Butene C4H8 and other hydrocarbons.

Plastic had an inauspicious birth when an Englishman, Alexander Parkes, looking for collodion in his medicine cabinet to staunch a wound discovered that it had gelled into a tough rubbery substance.

He was an enterprising man who saw the possibilities of this substance been moulded and he finally produced a suitable mixture of collodion, camphor and ethanol and Parkesine, the first synthetic plastic was launched in 1865 and the Xylonite Company was formed a year later.

Research along the lines of plastics has given a great impetus to research and invention in many other different fields of endeavour. Millions are spent yearly on plastics research, in a bid to find new plastics and improve the existing ones.

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