Page 22 - Plastics News November 2017

FEATURES

took over 100 percent of its shares. The MBA Polymers Management, explained, “One of the things holding
website says the German private equity firm will “further back companies like MBA Polymers is that the market for
develop the recycling technology and establish new secondary material is quite volatile. There is no point in
production facilities in promising markets.” One of those collecting plastics to recycle if we can’t find something
markets is the United States, where MBA Polymers started to put them into.” She said that change will come when
selling its plastic pellets last year and has experienced 300 countries start producing things closer to home again.
percent growth already. How sustainable this growth will That is not a problem in China, which imports most of the
be remains to be seen, with a fickle political landscape world's waste, including some 7.3 million tonnes of plastic
and landfill disposal in certain states costing as little as last year. But the country has announced that it plans to
six dollars a tonne. MBA Polymers has other challenges, shut shop on the globe’s garbage starting in 2018, since
including convincing manufacturers that recycled plastic much of it is polluted. This news presents an enormous
is as good as its virgin alternative. As Mayhew pointed out, opportunity for the world’s mixed plastic recyclers.
“Some manufacturers are proud to announce they use our “Companies in the EU couldn't compete with China as a
recycled plastic, but others keep secret their use of our buyer of this material,” Mayhew said, “because we have
high-specification products for fear that consumers will strict laws governing how you deal with it.” He noted that
mistake it for poor quality.”
China recycles only about half of the imported waste,
Another issue is what to do with all those pellets in sending the rest to landfill, and that MBA Polymers will
countries where manufacturing has slowed. Margaret operate differently. “We will offer a solution to correctly
Bates, President of the UK Chartered Institution of Waste handle this waste, put it back into manufacture as a high
quality product, and close the loop.”

Plastic bottles upcycled for urban farming purposes

In Yaoundé, a youth-oriented urban agriculture project is sprouting out of used plastic bottles

he Plastics Industry is growing globally and while source of wealth,” Kondzou announced to his audience
Twe always talk about the plastics industry in US and during a practical workshop organized on September 8,
UK the African continent remains to be overlooked, but 2017 in the Biyem-Assi neighborhood of Yaoundé’s 7 th
no more. In Yaoundé, the political capital of Cameroon, district. Among the participants was Adrienne Tchapmi, a
each downpour of rain sets plastic bottles floating down general practitioner and recent graduate of the University
the waters of the Mfoundi, the river that
meanders through this administrative city.
The situation is such that, in the rainy season
this ‘river city’ of 3 million inhabitants
instead resembles a giant garbage tip. An
impression that the association J2D_Afrique
intends to stamp out, thanks to its urban
agriculture project.
Jean François Kondzou, National Coordinator
of the association, has set about to give these
used plastic bottles a second life.“What the
ordinary man calls waste is now perceived as
the starting point for the creation of a new

Plastics News N ovember 2017 22