Friday, April 1, 2011

Recycle plastic

by Trashy Bags
Here in Tamale, most visitors are surprised about the large quantities of plastic that are being used (and wasted). I am talking about rubber bags, the small sachets that are used to transport drinking water, ... At the other hand, plastic bottles and drums are always being re-used. Just as I saw in Mumbai, plastic bottles can even be used as currency. But all these black rubber bags and used water sachets for drinking water are a real pest.



shower curtain
Many people have already been breaking their head whether there isn't a way of reusing these wasted sachets. Mostly I find organisations that try to make handbags from the used sachets (see Global Mamas, psfk and g-lish), somebody made furniture out of plastic bottles and even shinguards. Ivonne, a Dutch volunteer, even made her personal shower curtain as a souvenir for at home.

All these ideas are very cute and a good start, but in my opinion no way near to a large scale solution. I don't believe that you can put up a large scale business in selling bags to tourists or ex-volunteers.

While doing a little online research for this blog entry, I just learn about Blowplast Recycling operative in Accra. They offer ¢1,000.00 cedis for every 1 kilo of waste (used pure water sachets, black polythene bags and other waste plastice). Now that's more like it!
This looks very promising, although I don't think they are talking about the new currency (making it USD 700.00), the old currency (USD 0.07) per kilogram of plastic waste seems more realistic.

More:

Update:

3 comments:

  1. Another solution: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4619748.stm or http://www.terradaily.com/reports/UNEP_chief_praises_Rwanda_for_plastic_bag_ban_999.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Martin, thanks for the links! Let me make them clickable: BBC (2006), Terra Daily (2011)

    Banning the plastic is very interesting, though quite drastic. Still, Rwanda has pulled it off succesfully with a law in 2004.

    To me, public awareness is step number one, after that the government could also intervene by making plastic more expensive than less poluting materials or (like in Rwanda's case) even banning it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Als de overheid het ophalen niet regelt (zoals in Afrika) is het natuurlijk een stuk moeilijker.
    Om ze opnieuw te gebruiken ken ik de zakken niet goed genoeg... maar als ze voorverpakt en gesealed zijn dan wordt het moeilijk.
    Ge kunt ze wel altijd ophalen en recyclen (zoals uw gordijn) maar op iets professionelere schaal: reinigen en dan recycleren tot vezels.
    Deze vezels kunnen dan gebruikt worden in kleding of versterking van andere materialen (fleece vesten zijn gerecycleerde plastic). De enige definitieve oplossing om vervuiling tegen te gaan heeft steun van overheid nodig (regels en wetgeving + georganiseerde ophaalservice)
    Veel hangt ook af van het soort plastiek natuurlijk... ik denk dat de zakken PE zijn, dat alleen tot vezels verwerkt kan worden. Mocht het echter PET zijn, dan kan je het chemisch recycleren en terug dezelfde plastic zakken van maken.
    Het grote probleem in Afrika is echter dat het voedsel en de voedselveiligheid veel belangrijker zijn dan plastic waste ...
    Een hele opgave om dit allemaal tegen te gaan dus...

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...