More plastic bottles recycled in SA than thrown away
South Africa is winning the battle to recycle plastic bottles and more PET plastic bottles are now being recycled than being sent to landfill.
A construction company in South Africa has opted for cheaper methods of repairing roads while at the same time preserving the environment. Shisalanga Construction became the first company in South Africa to lay a section of road that’s partly plastic, in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province on the east coast.
It has now repaved more than 400 meters of the road in Cliffdale, on the outskirts of Durban, using asphalt made with the equivalent of almost 40,000 recycled two-liter plastic milk bottles.
Shisalanga uses high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a thick plastic typically used for milk bottles. A local recycling plant turns it into pellets, which are heated to 190 degrees Celsius until they dissolve and are mixed with additives. They replace six percent of the asphalt’s bitumen binder, so every ton of asphalt contains roughly 118 to 128 bottles.
Unlike in Europe, for example, where recyclable plastic is often collected directly from homes, in South Africa, 70 percent is sourced from landfill. The plastic will only be taken from landfill if there is somewhere for it to go — such as into roads. Shisalanga says that by turning bottles into roads it is creating a new market for waste plastic, allowing its recycling plant partner to take more out of the nation’s dumps.
Roads are one of many creative solutions to reusing plastic waste. Companies around the world are turning it into bricks, fuel and clothing.
