Recycling Plastic

This post is a continuation of the comment I posted on Shirley's blog - in response to her crusade against Plastic Bags. Although many would sympathise with the cause, the reality is that Plastic carry bags are too handy an item to be just banned. The problem is not when you use them to carry stuff, the whole debate is about how you dispose off the waste plastic bags.

Well, let me share the good news of how things are changing by Plastic Recycling. (I had read about them somewhere years back and now I just Googled these from the Net)

1. Road Construction. Professor R Vasudevan of Thiagrajar College first came up with the idea of mixing bitumen (used in road construction) with shredded plastic waste (yeah, shredded plastic bags - the ones we throw in our dustbins) and using the polymerised mixture for road construction. In 2002, the Chennai Corporation built a short stretch of road to test his method. It has proved to be hugely successful.

Thereafter, Bangalore based KK Plastic Waste Management has taken up the task of fine-tuning the technology building roads using plastic waste. They have developed two methods called "Dry Mixing" i.e. shredding plastic bags and simply mixing with the bitumen; and "Wet Mixing" where the plastic is first powdered and then mixed with the bitumen. These methods have got the seal of approval of Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), for all India implementation.

2. Extracting Petroleum from Waste Plastic. Just a year after Professor Vasudevan built his road using Plastic waste, another Professor Alka Umesh Zadgaonkar of Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur invented a machine to convert waste plastic (yes, the same carry bags), to petrol. As part of her demo, she took 1 Kg of plastic waste in her 'machine' and within 3 and a half hours was able to produce mixed fuel. Using fractional distillation (a method which is used to extract petrol from crude oil), she was able to extract 800 ml of Petrol. Can you imagine that 1Kg of waste plastic has 80% of fuel!

I was able to get some pictures of the Professor and her 'machine' which I'm posting below.

And the Future is Bright Because....

Well the future is bright because of two reasons -

1. As per a new initiative by the Bangalore Municipal Commissioner, the Municipality will BUY plastic waste from the people at Rs. 6/- per Kg. And yes you guessed it right, all this plastic waste will be used by KK Plastic Waste Management company to build and strengthen existing roads. In 2004, the Company has already completed a pilot project, laying 40 Km of roads in Bangalore. In 2006, this firm has got the go-ahead to strengthen all roads of Bangalore.

2. The Production Model of Professor Zadgaonkar's machine which can deliver upto 5 Tonnes of fuel per day has started production in full swing since 2005. IIT Mumbai is designing automation features for this machine which can be used by franchisees.

Conclusion

For those of you who don't stay in Bangalore or Nagpur, and feel guilty about using that Plastic bag this Diwali - pray that the amazing Plastic Recycling technologies mentioned above, should come knocking at the doors of your city too.

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