Thoughtful Recycling – Observations and Action

It’s very difficult to ‘think plastic’ without also thinking about its impact on the environment.

The products we manufacture, develop and distribute have high content PET – polyethylene terephthalate and PVC – polyvinyl chloride, so clearly have environmental issues both in the manufacturing process (here) and post-use disposal, by our clients.

Sinclair & Rush are very proud of the outstanding quality of our protection, display and storage products and we’re also proud of the systems we put in place to manage and comply with waste disposal. Our Environmental Management Systems are fully ISO 14001 certificated and apply to everything with a potential environmental impact.

Office waste paper is recycled for re-manufacturing; toner cartridges are recycled to reuse suppliers; power use is measured and managed to maximise savings and minimise waste; and general waste is recycled to Local Authority regulation and standards.

Clearly though, by far the greater concern is the disposal of raw material not fully used in manufacture or created as a by-product of the processes of dip moulding.

As you can no doubt imagine, there are many national and international directives relating to the chemical processing and the safe handling, storage and transportation of the chemicals used in manufacturing our own liquid plastics and the disposal and recycling of waste and by-product.

Perhaps the most influential directive is REACH from the Health and Safety Executive. This acronym stands for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & restriction of Chemicals and is a European Union regulation governing the acquisition, import / export, transport, storage and handling of chemicals. This classifies Sinclair & Rush as a ‘downstream’ user of chemicals – which most manufacturing companies will be to some degree.

As far as the actual disposal and recycling of plastic waste is concerned, well that’s a huge subject in itself and one we follow closely.

Disposal, recycling and remanufacturing of PVC waste is an industrial learning curve of global proportion. As the need for product continues to grow, the need to find ways to effectively recycle its by-product and post use waste grows exponentially.

All of the plastic waste at Sinclair & Rush is collected by specialists for recycling and remanufacture. Technically our responsibility stops there, though our interest and thoughts do not. What does happen to PVC waste and how can it be re used?

The scale of the research to develop safer and more accessible recycling techniques is massive and the world is learning and improving all the time. Whilst landfill is still the authorities’ first port of call, we all know it’s a short term option in a heavily populated shrinking world.

Activity higher up the scale (above) has lower environmental impact, though techniques are costly and the recyclate needs a high degree of purity and pre-sortation at the point of entry. The biggest developments are in the fields of Mechanical Recycling and Feedstock Recycling both of which re-engineer the waste to useful purpose.

‘Feedstock’ (not what you give to cattle) is the term given to the raw materials used in the production of PVC – Carbon, Hydrogen and Chlorine. Through high temperature treatments known as PVC pyrolisis, useful feedstock can be recovered from the waste.

At 250-600C, the process splits chlorine atoms from the PVC waste when sodium hydroxide is added. This produces sodium chloride, or salt, which is used in many other processes such as generating chlorine for the production of new PVC. At 600C, the PVC chain breaks down to release useful hydrocarbons used instead of oil or gas, again to make new plastics.

Mechanical recycling (here’s an excellent (short) You Tube video that sums it up: http://youtu.be/xNNnP86N_kE)

Mechanical recycling takes the PVC waste through a process of pre-sortation, cleaning, cutting, chopping and grinding to create various grades of re-usable PVC pellets and powder. These are used to make pipes or in vinyl flooring where the colour and purity are less important. AA quality powder is a purer product used in higher quality PVC manufacturing … so the cycle goes on, reducing the environmental impact by prolonging the viable life of PVC.

Think Environment ~ we do.

Put us to the test.

We work with manufacturing companies in the UK & Europe, who have problems protecting or finishing their products. We manufacture and supply solutions for this through a wide variety of plastic mouldings, caps, plugs and sleeves, which means they... or indeed you.... reduce the risk of damage or contamination, so your customers receive a top quality product every time.

www.thinkplastic.co