Myth: Recyclable materials have no value Plastics and other forms of recycling can learn a lot from scrap metal recycling where the scrap yards in Dubai work in sync with manufacturers to deliver green products that can again be reused for recycling. As experts would suggest the problem with recycling isn’t the lack of a well-organized structure or the citizens of a country who fail to follow the 3 R’s, but the materials that are being recycled as whole. What they mean by this, is that recycling would be far more organized and everything would just ‘flow’ right if modern day materials used in a variety of industries were designed and engineered keeping recycling in mind. Yes! As most would argue most materials including plastics and almost every type of scrap metal available at the scrap yards of Dubai are recyclable. The problem is that recycling came about when there was no place to dump all of the commonly discarded materials that were lying down along with the plastics and the tonnes of glass and paper.
A true recyclable material would or should have the following characteristics: •
It should be energy efficient to make
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It should be environmentally friendly
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It should easily be able to take different shapes/forms without the need for even 2% of the energy and effort it took to produce it.
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It should be economical to manufacture
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It should be self-cleaning and hygienic
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It must be government subsidized so that it becomes just a vessel to deliver and store items and the material can be sorted easily from garbage and trash via processes that are completely automated.
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It should leave behind nothing (residue) if it needs to be discarded or disposed off.
The entire model of recycling today is based more on profit more than anything else. Some recyclers do not recycle plastics because it is simply cheaper to create new plastic and that recycled plastic simply costs a lot more for manufacturers and packers. What happens next? Everybody still continues to use plastics for every possible purchase and new plastics keep entering the system when the old already have nowhere to go. But, attitude is changing; and it’s the governments that have woken up to take stricter actions against manufacturers. Government bodies have begun pushing manufacturers to go greener and begin recycling; making it easier for municipalities to get rid of the growing plastic problem.
Plastics and other forms of recycling can learn a lot from scrap metal recycling where the scrap yards in Dubai work in sync with manufacturers to deliver green products that can again be re-used for recycling. More can be learnt from the automotive industry wherein the designs of cars have been changed to allow for easier dismantling or reduced metals to ensure easier disposal or re-use of the remainder. Every single piece of metal here has value because the industry has learnt to make use of what we have got. The scenario for recycling is different for different materials keeping in mind the industries they are tied down to. It is eventually up to manufacturers and not the scrap recyclers in Dubai to tap into recycled plastics and other unused resources to find efficient applications for them and create better value so that they can be utilized in the right manner.