Recycling Matters

MAY 2015 | ISSUE 1

ENERGY FROM WASTE TO ENERGY

LEGISLATION

THE WASTE MANAGEMENT LEGAL FRAMEWORK South Africa R24,00 (incl. VAT)

THE 4Rs OF RECYCLING: REDUCE | RE-USE | RECOVER | RECYCLE

“I am a proud recycler, because I separate at source” – Ian Barnard

Editor’s note

R

ecycling Matters is more than just a magazine. It is a way of life, it is a source of education and it is a great way to create jobs and make money while ensuring that we do not impact negatively on the environment. It sounds like a great story and I was asked in November, 2014 to be a part of it. The publisher of this magazine and one of South Africa’s great recycling champions, Ian Barnard, asked me to join him in making a one of his recycling based ventures come to pass.

I had already met the man Ian Barnard two years before this, and we had worked together on a business plan he was finalising for a materials recovery facility. That is a R50 million project, employing well over 300 people, and creating several other businesses around it; made possible by the IDC coming on board. I knew Ian Barnard as a man of his word and somebody that I believed we could change South Africa with. As an editor and social entrepreneur, I want to be part of anything that is changing lives either by creating jobs or creating new sources of income that can be turned around to change entire communities. Working with Ian Barnard on a recycling project just seemed like the right thing to do. I could now count myself among local heroes that are changing lives, creating businesses and saving the planet from total abuse of its limited resources.

And so here we are, this is the very first issue of Recycling Matters, South Africa’s leading source of information on recycling, the socio environmental impact, and business potential of recycling.

In order to achieve what we aim to do, we at Recycling Matters believe in the 4Rs of Recycling namely: Reduce, Reuse, Recover, and Recycle. This forms the underpinning philosophy for what we do. If we can reduce, reuse, recover and recycle, we can save the planet and by so doing create a recycling based economic sector that can compete with some of the biggest sectors such as mining and finance.

Joburg alone churns out approximately 5000 tons of municipal solid waste every day. The landfills are filling up fast; we need solutions that counter that way of thinking and create value from the glass, plastics, wood, paper and metals that are dumped on these landfills. Also dumped on the landfills is a considerable amount of electronic waste such as old computers and other electronic equipment. All these landfilled products have value either by way of direct reuse or recovery by extracting the valuable components of the waste.

There are many solutions out there that will help us create value, out of what we traditionally refer to as waste. Some of the solutions come in form of materials recovery technology, some come in form of buy back centres giving back cash into the economy, some come in form of information for example the materials and renewables conference to take place on the 1st and 2nd July, and yet still some come in form of partnerships between government and the private individual. The important thing is that we are making solutions that can propel us into a sustainable future of improved management of resources.

Besides me and Ian Barnard, our team is a mixed team of champions that are making this magazine a reality. Theo Moerane is our senior journalist, Linki Khubayi runs with the marketing side of the business, Sibusiso Singo or simply just Sbu joined as head of IT and design, and we have a recycling specialist with many years of local and international exposure in recycling, Ian Gwebu.

I said it before and I say it again, this is more than just a magazine. We are changing lives.

Managing Editor Chris Mutale

Contents Recycling Page 8 - The role of waist pickers Page 10 - Gold recycling Page 12 - How to Reuse, Reduce and Recycle Page 16 - Recycling Water Page 18 - Green planet Recycling Page 20 - Recycled cardboard bicycle Page 22 - Furniture turned Fire hose Page 24 - What is recycling Page 26 - Waste sorting

Legal Page 30 - Legislations for waste Management Energy Page 34 - Converting waste to Energy News Page 38 - Making Lusaka clean Corporate features Page 40 - Reverse logistics

The team

8

The role of waist pickers

CEO / Publisher Ian Barnard

Managing Director Lisa Cruickshack

Marketing Director

30

Linki Khubayi

Legislations for waste Management

Editor Chris Mutale

Senior Journalist Theo Moerane

Layout & Graphics designer Sibusiso Singo

Disclaimer

Farming Page 60 - Worm farming

48

Technology Page 44 - Electrolux (vacs from the future) Page 48 - Apple’s effective recycling Page 54 - Closing the circle of PVC waste Page 56 - Poor quality LFG

44

The views and opinions expressed in the various articles in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of magazine publisher or editor. While every effort has been made to ensure that information is correct at the time of going to print, Recycling Matters cannot be held responsible for the outcome of any action or decision based on the information contained in this publication. The publishers or authors do not give any warranty for the completeness or accuracy for this publication’s content, explanation or opinion. It is advisable that prospective persons, institutions and businesses consult their technical advisor/s, attorney/s and/or financial advisor/s prior to following pursuing any business opportunity. © Recycling Matters. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the Publisher. Permission is only deemed valid if approval is in writing. Recycling Matters buy all rights to contributions, text and images, unless previously agreed to in writing.

“I am a proud recycler, because I separate at source” - Ian Bernard RED U CE

RE-U SE

E

RY

R

REC O V E REUSE

EC Y C L

REDUCE

R E C OV E R

www.recyclingmatters.co.za

R E C YC L E

advert

RECYCLING

Role of Waste Pickers

Street waste – Living on what others throw away

I

t has been observed that waste pickers within the Johannesburg metro cover a great area to go to fetch their weekly stock to deliver recyclable buy back centres. We note that the main focus of collection is around PET (polyethylene terephthalate) as a primary recyclable, with cans and metals being second and the lowest being boxes and glass. This is caused by the price of buy back of these recyclables.

Polyethylene terephthalate – PET is an excellent water and moisture barrier material, plastic bottles made from PET are widely used for soft drinks. There is a need to increase support and education to masses on how to deal with all types of waste. The waste hierarchy outlines the support of Reduce, Reuse, Recycling and Recover. At the heart of separation at source waste, pickers are found to be the ones having a great impact of withdrawing all recyclable materials.

In household waste it is now normal to find a waste picker removing recyclables prior to the waste truck coming to pick up waste for disposal.

Millions of people worldwide make a living collecting, sorting, recycling, and 8 -

- May

selling valuable materials disposed of as waste. Waste pickers contribute to public health, reduce the costs associated with municipal solid waste management, and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the environment. In many countries, waste pickers supply the only form of solid waste collection. While waste pickers provide vital services to their communities, their municipalities and the environment – they generally face very difficult working conditions and in many cases have little or no support from local governments. Waste pickers have been organizing themselves into cooperatives, unions and associations and have found that forging solidarity links across continents is an important strategy, and have increased their global networking since the First World Conference of Waste Pickers took place, in 2008, in Bogota, Colombia. Supporting waste pickers is a key element in a people-centered approach to development.

What will be the future of waste pickers in South Africa?

For many individuals and families waste picking has become a way of survival.

The activities of the waste pickers fall within the informal economy. In spite of the fact that waste pickers are a common

sight, scant attention is paid to them with high levels of unemployment as a permanent feature in the urban areas of many developing countries.

Waste pickers should be supported and helped to fight for the right to be on landfill sites or our household bins just to help reduce the volumes of waste directed for disposal to landfills. A high volume reduction in landfills is eminent as more and more big suppliers of products are encouraging recycling of their products as environmental compliance. Whether we appreciate it or not, they are taking an initiative to help the government achieve better waste management system without over flooding of waste in communities. This entails independent individuals who make a living reclaiming recyclable waste from the waste stream; predominantly from landfill sites and selling it on to the recycling companies or buy back centres.

Without prior education or qualification in waste management, a high number of South Africans currently earn a living in this way. Waste picking offers individuals a means to make a living and also contribute to skills development with routine waste collection and encourages development of new strategies towards waste management.

RECYCLING

Gold Recycling to Remain Low in 2015

G

OLD recycling is estimated to continue restrained after falling to seven-year lows because of muted gold prices and a recovery in the global economy.

Recycling is a vital source of the metal in the supply chain, contributing on average about a third of the market’s gold in the two decades to the end of 2014, a report from the World Gold Council and Boston Consulting Group.

Gold recycling hit a peak in 2009 with 1,728 tonnes of metal processed, making up 42% of world supply, but these volumes had since tapered off as the price softened and countries recovered from the global financial crisis that started in 2008, the report said.

Summarising the production for recycling — the gold price, financial crises and flows of gold into products such as jewellery — the report said recycling should be low again. “Taking into account these insights and recent 10-

- May

macroeconomic trends, we expect global recycling to remain low in 2015,” it said, without giving a forecast.

The total amount of mined gold is estimated by Thomson Reuters GFMS to be 176,000 tonnes.

When it comes to recycling, 90% of the feedstock comes from jewellery and the balance of 10% — which has doubled from 5% in just a decade — from processing electronic goods that use gold.

In 2009, when the global financial crisis was at its height, cash-for-gold outlets sprang up, particularly in the US, contributing to the flows of recycled gold that year.

Since then, as gold prices weakened and global economies staged recoveries, a number of those outlets had gone out of business, the report said.

During 2008 and 2009, recycling of gold increased 25%, helped by a strong price, underlying the contention that economic crises boosted gold recycling. “In general, financial crises boost gold recycling

over and above a price effect by about 20%,” the report said.

But the gold price remained the primary driver for recycling, accounting for 75% of the annual change in gold recycling volumes, it said. For every 1% increase in the price a year, recycled gold volumes rise 0.6%.

Western countries’ contribution to recycling, mainly from the US and Europe, has grown to 43% of the world’s recycled gold in 2011, from 27% in 2004.

An estimated 86,000 tonnes of gold is in the form of jewellery. The amount of gold transformed into jewellery has risen at a rate of between 2% and 9% since 1982, according to a World Gold Council study.

Recycling grew at about 4% a year as jewellery consumption increased, the study found. Recycling is important in the gold market because it is dynamic.

advert

RECYCLING

How to Reuse,Reduce and Recycle

Ideas on how to reduce and reuse

L

earn how reducing, reusing, and recycling can help you, your community, and the environment by saving money, energy, and natural resources. Recycling programs are managed at the state and local level find information on recycling in your community. Reducing and Reusing Basics The most effective way to reduce waste is to not create it in the first place.

Making a new product requires a lot of materials and energy thus raw materials must be extracted from the earth, and the product must be fabricated and then transported to wherever it will be sold.

As a result, reduction and reuse are the most effective ways you can save natural resources, protect the environment, and save money.

12-

- May

Benefits of Reducing and Reusing • • • • • •

•

Prevents pollution caused by reducing the need to harvest new raw materials Saves energy Reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change Helps sustain the environment for future generations, Saves money Reduces the amount of waste that will need to be recycled or sent to landfills and incinerators; Allows products to be used to their fullest extent.

Buy used, you can find everything from clothes to building materials at specialized reuse centers and consignment shops. Often, used items are less expensive and just as good as new. Look for products that use less packaging. When manufacturers make their products with less packaging, they use fewer raw materials. This reduces waste and costs. These extra savings can be passed along to the consumer. Buying in bulk, for example, can reduce packaging and save money.

Buy reusable over disposable items. Look for items that can be reused; the little things can add up. For example, you can bring your own silverware and cup to work, rather than using disposable items. Maintain and repair products, like clothing, tires, and appliances, so that they won’t have to be thrown out and replaced as frequently. Borrow, rent, or share items that are used infrequently, like party decorations, tools, or furniture.

Before Donating or Recycling Your Used Electronics •

• •

For your computer or laptop, consider upgrading the hardware or software instead of buying a brand new product.

Delete all personal information from your electronics.

Remove any batteries from your electronics; they may need to be recycled separately.

Donation

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Instead of discarding unwanted appliances, tools, or clothes, try selling or donating them. Not only will you be reducing waste, you’ll be helping others.

Local churches, community centers, thrift stores, schools, and nonprofit organizations may accept a variety of donated items, including used books, working electronics, and unneeded furniture.

Electronics Donation and Recycling Electronic products are made from valuable resources and materials, including metals, plastics, and glass, all of which require energy to mine and manufacture.

Donating or recycling consumer electronics conserves our natural resources and avoids air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by manufacturing virgin materials. Research shows that recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 South African homes in a year. For every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 kg of silver, 75kg of gold, and 33kg of palladium can be recovered.

You have three recycling options:

Benefits of Donation

•

•

• •

Organise yourself a kerbside or office collection service Take your recyclables to a municipal drop-off point or a buyback centre Let informal recyclers take your recyclables to a buy-back centre.

KERBSIDE /OFFICE COLLECTION SERVICES These are run by private companies but you have to pay for the service. Fortunately, they aren’t prohibitively expensive and the convenience factor often makes the price worthwhile. The beauty of Kerbside or office collection services is that that they give you a list of the material they collect and all you have to do is rinse off the food residues and pop it into a bag or a wheelie bin (or whatever receptacle your service prefers).Then once every week or fortnight, you put your wheelie bin or bag on the pavement and a truck comes and takes it away. This makes recycling so easy that you won’t find it a hassle at all.

DROP-OFF POINTS AND BUY-BACK CENTRES If you go this route, you will have to separate your recyclables at home and have somewhere to store them until you take them to a drop-off site or buy-back centre.

• • • • • • •

Prevents usable goods from going into landfills Helps your community and those in need Tax benefits may be available Reducing and Reusing Basics Allows products to be used to their fullest extent.

Prevents usable goods from going into landfills Helps your community and those in need Tax benefits may be available METAL BEVERAGE CANS

Collect-a-can, a joint venture between ArcelorMittal South Africa (Africa’s major steel producer and producer of tinplate for food and beverage cans) and Nampak (Africa’s largest packaging company and beverage can producer), is the main collector of used beverage cans.

They have offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Vanderbijlpark, Durban and Cape Town. (See website for contact details.)

In Johannesburg you can take cans to the drop-off points at Pikitup’s garden centres. For information on garden centres with drop-off points visit www.pikitup. co.za (look under general information, then select regional information and click on garden sites). If you can’t access the info on Pikitup’s website (I can’t for some reason), the garden sites with recycling facilities are listed here.

GLASS Take your glass to drop-off points at Pikitup’s garden centres or visit the Glass Recycling Company’s website www. glassrecyclingcompany.co.za for a list of glass bank locations around the country.

If your town is not on the list, it may be worth phoning The Glass Recycling Company (the number is on the website) because there may still be glass banks.

You can also take glass to the drop-off points at Pikitup’s garden sites in Johannesburg or to one of the many buy-back centres that operate around the country.

May -

- 13

RECYCLING

PAPER White office paper is the most valuable, coloured paper and cardboard are next, then magazines and, finally, newspapers.

Mondi has a national Ronnie Recycling kerbside collection service. For information visitwww.paperpickup.co.za or phone 0800-022-112 FREE. You can also take paper to drop-off points at Pikitup’s garden sites.

Gardening Feed your soil with compost, make compost at home, or buy it in bags or bulk. Compost helps sandy soils hold nutrients and water, loosens clay soils, and feeds the organisms that are beneficial to soil.

Mow higher and leave the clippings.

Modern mulching lawn mowers make “grass is cycling” even easier. Homeowners can reduce their mowing time by 30 to 40 percent by not having to bag clippings.

Choose the right plant for the right place. Select plants that grow well in your area of the country and fit the amount of sun, type of soil and water available in your yard.

Give plants a good start. Prepare the soil by mixing one to three inches of compost into soil in planting beds.

Water deeply, but infrequently. Most plants do best if the soil is allowed to partially dry out between waterings.

Reduce food waste by using up the food you already bought and have in the house instead of buying more. You already paid for it - so use it!

Non-perishable and unspoiled perishable food can be donated to local food

banks, soup kitchens, pantries, and shelters.

Reuse items around the house such as rags and wipes, empty jars and mugs, party decorations, and gift wrap.

Buy products in concentrate, bulk, and in refillable containers. They reduce packaging waste and can save you money!

Return used car tyres to retailers or wholesalers that recycle or retread them.

Tyres are banned from most landfills and illegally dumped tyres become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other pests.

When buying products, check the labels to determine an item’s recyclability and whether it is made from recycled materials. Buying recycled encourages manufacturers to make more recycled content products available.

Properly store any unused paint for future use, donate unused paint to neighbors or charities, or turn in your used paint to a waste collection facility for recycling.

Buy products that contain minimal amounts, or no, hazardous ingredients.

Use alternative methods or products without hazardous ingredients for common household needs, such as making a household cleaning solution from 1 cup of warm water, 3 drops of vegetable based liquid soap, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar.

Products that contain hazardous ingredients should be used and stored properly to prevent accidents in the home.

Never store hazardous products in food containers; keep them in their original containers and never remove labels.

Corroding containers may require special handling. Call your local hazardous

materials official or fire department for instructions.

Paper Paper makes up nearly 30 percent of all wastes Americans throw away each year, more than any other material. Americans recycled about 63 percent of the paper they used in 2010. This recovered paper is used to make new paper products, saving trees and other natural resources. Most community or office recycling programs accept paper and paper products. Check what your community or office program accepts before you put it in the bin. When you go shopping, look for products that are made from recycled paper.

Batteries Some batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel; therefore, many communities do not allow them to be thrown away with your regular trash. Recycling is always the best option for disposing of used batteries. Lead-Acid Car Batteries can be returned to almost any store that sells car batteries. The lead and plastics from the batteries can then be recycled and used to manufacture new products. About 96 percent of lead-acid car batteries are recycled.

Dry-Cell Batteries are used in a variety of electronics and include alkaline and carbon zinc (9-volt, D, C, AA, AAA), mercuric-oxide (button, some cylindrical and rectangular), silver-oxide and zinc-air (button), and lithium (9-volt, C, AA, coin, button, rechargeable) batteries.

Look for in-store recycling bins or community collection events to dispose of these batteries.

Plastics Americans generated 31 million tons of plastics in 2010, about 12 percent of the waste stream. Only eight percent of plastics were recycled in 2010. Some types of plastics are recycled much more than others. Most community recycling programs accept some, but not all, types of plastics. Look for products made from recycled plastic materials.

What do the symbols mean on the bottom of plastic bottles and containers?

These symbols were created by plastic manufacturers to help people identify the kind of plastic resin used to make the container. This can help you determine if the container can be accepted by your local recycling program. The resin number is contained in a triangle, which looks very similar to the recycling symbol, but this does not necessarily mean it can be collected for recycling in your community.

Glass Glass, especially glass food and beverage containers, can be recycled over and over again. Americans generated 11.5 million tons of glass in 2010, about 27 percent of which was recovered for recycling.

Making new glass from recycled glass is typically cheaper than using raw materials. Most curbside community recycling programs accept different glass colors

and types mixed together, and then glass is sorted at the recovery facility. Check with your local program to see if you need to separate your glass or if it can be mixed together. Learn more about glass recycling.

Used Oil Never dump your used motor oil down the drain — the used oil from one oil change can contaminate one million gallons of fresh water. By recycling your used oil you not only help keep our water supply clean, but help reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

It takes 42 gallons of crude oil, but only one gallon of used oil, to produce 2.5 quarts of new motor oil. Many garages and auto-supply stores that sell motor oil also accept oil for recycling. Learn more about recycling used oil. Find a motor oil recycler near you: Earth911 Exit.

Household Hazardous Waste Leftover household products that contain corrosive, toxic, ignitable, or reactive ingredients are considered to be household hazardous waste (HHW).

Products such as paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides that contain potentially hazardous ingredients require special care when you dispose of them.

HHW may be dangerous to people or bad for the environment if poured down the drain, dumped on the ground, or thrown out with regular trash.

What you can do: Try to reduce your purchases of these products and look for alternative, non-hazardous Products.

When you do need to dispose of these products, look for special collection events in your community or permanent collection centers. Sometimes businesses that sell these products will also accept them for recycling.

If you have to dispose of HHW, first check with your local waste management agency to see what rules apply in your community.

Learn more about household hazardous waste recycling.

Tyres Disease-carrying pests such as rodents may live in tyre piles. Tire piles can also catch on fire. Most garages are required to accept and recycle your used tires when you have new ones installed. You may be able to return used tires to either a tire retailer or a local recycling facility that accepts tires. Some communities will hold collection events for used tyres.

RECYCLING

How to Recycle Water

T

hrough more and more areas struggling with droughts, saving water is more important now than ever before. Even if you’re not living in a drought-stricken region, reducing back on water use also means a lower utility bill and helps conserve a precious resource.

Whether you’re ready to cut back on your showers or replace your lawn with water-wise plants, there are lots of big and small ways that you can conserve water around the home. Don’t worry if you can’t do everything on this list.

Just pick a few things to start with, and do more as you can. Even a few small changes can add up to hundreds of gal-

16-

- May

lons in water savings each year! Here are 20 water-saving tips to get you going…

your brush, and leave it off until it’s time to rinse.

1. Shower Bucket.

3. Turn off the tap while washing your hands.

Instead of letting the water pour down the drain, stick a bucket under the faucet while you wait for your shower water to heat up. You can use the water for flushing the toilet or watering your plants.

2. Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.

Water comes out of the average faucet at 2.5 gallons per minute. Don’t let all that water go down the drain while you brush! Turn off the faucet after you wet

Do you need the water to run while you’re scrubbing your hands? Save a few gallons of water and turn the faucet off after you wet your hands until you need to rinse.

4. If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

This tip might not be for everyone, but the toilet is one of the most water-intensive fixtures in the house. Do you need to flush every time?

5. Fix your leaks.

Whether you go DIY or hire a plumber, fixing leaky faucets can mean big water savings.

6. Re-use your pasta cooking liquid.

Instead of dumping that water down the drain, try draining your pasta water into a large pot. Once it cools, you can use it to water your plants. Just make sure you wait, because if you dump that boiling water on your plants, you might harm them.

7. Head to the car wash.

If you feel compelled to wash your car, take it to a car wash that recycles the water, rather than washing at home with the hose.

8. Cut your showers short.

Older shower heads can use as much as 5 gallons of water per minute.

Speed things up in the shower for some serious water savings.

9. Choose efficient fixtures.

Aerating your faucets, investing in a low-flow toilet, choosing efficient shower heads, and opting for a Water Sense rated dishwasher and washing machine can add up to big water savings.

10. Shrink your lawn. Even better: lose the lawn completely. Instead, opt for a xeriscaped landscape that incorporates water wise ground cover, succulents,

and other plants that thrive in drought conditions.

Water fact: One in eight people worldwide does not have access to clean drinking water.

11. Don’t run the dishwasher or washing machine until they’re full.

Those half-loads add up to gallons and gallons of wasted water.

12. Keep an eye on your bill to spot leaks.

If your water bill spikes suddenly, there’s a good chance that a leak is the culprit.

Call in a plumber to check your lines to save water and cash!

13. Install a rain barrel.

Rainwater harvesting is a great way to keep your plants hydrated without turning on the hose or sprinkler.

14. Flush with less.

Older toilets use a lot of water. You can reduce your usage by sinking a half gallon jug of water in the toilet tank. Do NOT use a brick, because it will break down and the sediment can damage your tank.

15. Water in the early morning.

You’ll need less water, since cooler morning temperatures mean losing less water to evaporation. It’s not a great idea to water in the evenings, since this can promote mold growth.

Water fact: The EPA predicts even more droughts in the future due to climate change. They also predict longer and more severe droughts.

16. Hand-washing a lot of dishes?

Fill up your sink with water, instead of letting it run the whole time that you’re scrubbing.

17. Use less electricity.

Power plants use thousands of gallons of water to cool. Do your part to conserve power, and you’re indirectly saving water, too!

18. Wash Fido outdoors.

That way, you’re watering your yard while you’re cleaning your pup. Just make sure that the soap you’re using isn’t harmful to your plants!

19. Skip the shower from time to time.

Do you really need to shower multiple times a day or even daily? Skipping even one shower a week adds up to big water savings.

20. Re-use grey water.

Check to make sure that this is legal where you live, but in some areas you can do things like re-route the runoff from your clothes washer and use that water for things like flushing the toilet.

RECYCLING

Green Planet Recycling

G

reen Planet Recycling (GPR) purchases and recycles plastic scrap, specifically rigid PP (Polypropylene), HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) and LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene). We have a capacity of approximately 1920 tons per annum and welcome granulation, extrusion and toll recycling.

A brief simplification of GPR’s recycling business is: plastic is chopped up, washed, dried, densified, extruded and finally, pelletised and bagged. This plastic is then supplied to the plastic industry, for film blowing, injection- or roto-moulidng and ultimately converted into a wide variety of plastic products, from bags and sheeting to agricultural 18-

- May

piping, buckets, bins and other containers.

We purchase much of our plastic from landfill (dump) sites, thereby providing a source of income for hundreds of “waste-pickers” in the local community.

Our business model is quite specifically designed to create an environment investing in “human capital”, widespread training and job creation, while understanding the importance of eco-conscious, yet economically viable, sustainability.

At the heart of GPR is the core ethic that every kilogram of plastic recycled is a kilogram kept out of landfill sites.

Furthermore, our production process is continually evaluated and refined in order to minimise the inevitable carbon

footprint associated with any manufacturing process. We also recognise water as a precious natural resource and wherever possible, all water used is harvested, filtered, recycled and re-used.

Green Planet Recycling cc has the vision to become a leader within the recycling industry in terms of its success as a model for environmentally responsible business sustainability and a minimum possible carbon footprint within its industry. As a new business, it is a registered member of the Plastic Federation of South Africa and is in the process of obtaining a license in terms of the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 59 of 2008.

The UK’s First Poo-Powered Bus Hits the Streets

T

he Bio-Bus, the U.K.’s first poo-powered bus, just hit the road and is going into active service for a four-week trial period starting Monday 24 November, 2014. The 40-seater bus runs on gas generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste that’s unfit for human consumption, and produces fewer emissions than a traditional diesel engine. The bus is being run by the

Bath Bus Company, covering the Bath to Bristol Airport service along the A4 motorway.

The Bio-Bus can travel 186 miles (300 km) on a full tank of gas. The gas is generated at the Bristol sewage treatment works, a plant run by GENeco, which is a subsidiary of Wessex Water. The general manager of GENeco, Mohammed Saddiq, said: “Through treating sewage and food

that’s unfit for human consumption we’re able to produce enough biomethane to provide a significant supply of gas to the national gas network that’s capable of powering almost 8,500 homes as well as fuelling the Bio-Bus.”

The Bio-Bus can travel 300 km on a full tank of gas.

RECYCLING

Super strong, lightweight recycled cardboard bicycle costs just R99 to make!

I

sraeli cycling enthusiast Izhar Gafni has created the coolest eco-vehicle to hit the streets in quite a while - a bike made entirely of cardboard! The sturdy cycle is cheap, eco-friendly, and certainly unique. Gafni first painstakingly bends and folds pieces of cardboard into what initially looks like a shipping package on wheels. He then dunks the design in resin, adds a layer of pearly paint and voila - his one-of-a-kind cardboard creation works and looks just like a beautiful bicycle, but it only costs $10 to make.

Gafni describes the beginning of his cardboard obsession as when he read about a man creating a canoe with the 20-

- May

same material. He ran into his shed and began cutting and shaping his old boxes into what eventually became bicycle

“

From incredible corrugated sculptures to eco-friendly furniture, we’re constantly amazed by inspired new uses for cardboard. The rather ubiquitous brown material has proven itself time

”

pieces. He then folds pieces over and over to make them strong, testing their durability under cars and cinder blocks.

A coat of resin makes the cardboard waterproof, allowing riders to glide through puddles or a rain storm without fear of going soggy. An attachable electric motor is also available for those with a need for speed.

The best part of the incredible cardboard bicycle is the pocket friendly price tag.

Materials cost around $10, making the two-wheeler “so cheap its not even worth stealing” says Gafni, or at least easy to replace. The bicycle is now patent pending and is expected to hit the streets soon!

A MEMBER OF THE LINDE GROUP

RECYCLING

Household Furniture turned FIRE HOSE

W

hat happens to fire hose once it has reached the end of its use? At Oxgut Hose Co., they become just about anything for the home that you can imagine, like seating, rugs or a even a firehose wood carrier. The company, which is based in Oakland, CA. works with Bay Area designers and artisans to make furniture and accessories that feature reclaimed fire hose, keeping them out of the landfill. Oxgut Hose Co., named for the first fire hose used in Ancient Greece, also helps give back to the community by donating a portion of the proceeds to Alisa Ann Ruch Foundation.

To provide a safe haven in a country notorious for its air pollution, Gensler designed the Glumac office with advanced air purification systems that 22-

- May

provide healthy indoor air quality consistently measuring at a PM2.5 standard of less than 30 μg/m3, even when outside air quality reaches hazardous levels of above 300. A living green wall was also installed to help purify the air. Per LBC standards, all of the construction material was responsibly sourced and include locally manufactured, recycled, and salvaged materials.

Powered by solar energy, the office consumes less than 40,000 kWh per year and directs excess energy produced to the state grid. In addition to plus energy capabilities, the office is equipped with water-efficient fixtures that use collected and treated rainwater; around 500-cubic-meters of rainwater is harvested annually however, the fixtures only consume 200-cubic-meters of water a year. The project was completed with a zero carbon footprint.

“A

Company That Makes Household Products Using Reclaimed Fire Hose

”

RECYCLING

What is Recycling

T

hrough more and more areas struggling with droughts, saving water is more important now than ever before.

Even if you’re not living in a drought-stricken region, reducing back on water use also means a lower utility bill and helps conserve a precious resource.

Whether you’re ready to cut back on your showers or replace your lawn with water-wise plants, there are lots of big and small ways that you can conserve water around the home. Don’t worry if you can’t do everything on this list. Just pick a few things to start with, and do more as you can. Even a few small changes can add up to hundreds of gallons in water savings each year! Here are 20 water-saving tips to get you going…

1. Shower Bucket.

Instead of letting the water pour down the drain, stick a bucket under the faucet while you wait for your shower water to heat up. You can use the water for flushing the toilet or watering your plants.

24-

- May

2. Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.

Water comes out of the average faucet at 2.5 gallons per minute. Don’t let all that water go down the drain while you brush! Turn off the faucet after you wet your brush, and leave it off until it’s time to rinse.

6. Re-use your pasta cooking liquid.

Instead of dumping that water down the drain, try draining your pasta water into a large pot. Once it cools, you can use it to water your plants. Just make sure you wait, because if you dump that boiling water on your plants, you might harm them.

3. Turn off the tap while washing your hands.

Do you need the water to run while you’re scrubbing your hands? Save a few gallons of water and turn the faucet off after you wet your hands until you need to rinse.

7. Head to the car wash.

If you feel compelled to wash your car, take it to a car wash that recycles the water, rather than washing at home with the hose.

4. If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

This tip might not be for everyone, but the toilet is one of the most water-intensive fixtures in the house. Do you need to flush every time?

5. Fix your leaks.

Whether you go DIY or hire a plumber, fixing leaky faucets can mean big water savings.

8. Cut your showers short. Older shower heads can use as much as 5 gallons of water per minute.

Speed things up in the shower for some serious water savings.

9. Choose efficient fixtures.

Aerating your faucets, investing in a lowflow toilet, choosing efficient shower heads, and opting for a Water Sense rated dishwasher and washing machine can add up to big water savings.

10. Shrink your lawn. Even better: lose the lawn completely. Instead, opt for a xeriscaped landscape that incorporates water wise ground cover, succulents, and other plants that thrive in drought conditions.

Water fact: One in eight people worldwide does not have access to clean drinking water.

11. Don’t run the dishwasher or washing machine until they’re full.

Those half-loads add up to gallons and gallons of wasted water.

12. Keep an eye on your bill to spot leaks.

If your water bill spikes suddenly, there’s a good chance that a leak is the culprit. Call in a plumber to check your lines to save water and cash!

13. Install a rain barrel.

Rainwater harvesting is a great way to keep your plants hydrated without turning on the hose or sprinkler.

14. Flush with less.

Older toilets use a lot of water.

You can reduce your usage by sinking a half gallon jug of water in the toilet tank.

Do NOT use a brick, because it will break down and the sediment can damage your tank.

15. Water in the early morning.

You’ll need less water, since cooler morning temperatures mean losing less water to evaporation. It’s not a great idea to water in the evenings, since this can promote mold growth.

Water fact: The EPA predicts even more droughts in the future due to climate change. They also predict longer and more severe droughts.

16. Hand-washing a lot of dishes?

Fill up your sink with water, instead of letting it run the whole time that you’re scrubbing.

17. Use less electricity.

Power plants use thousands of gallons of water to cool. Do your part to conserve power, and you’re indirectly saving water, too!

18. Wash Fido outdoors.

That way, you’re watering your yard while you’re cleaning your pup. Just make sure that the soap you’re using isn’t harmful to your plants!

19. Skip the shower from time to time.

Do you really need to shower multiple times a day or even daily? Skipping even one shower a week adds up to big water savings.

20. Re-use grey water.

Check to make sure that this is legal where you live, but in some areas you can do things like re-route the runoff from your clothes washer and use that water for things like flushing the toilet.

RECYCLING

Waste sorting - A look at the Separation and sorting Techniques

C

itizens will not have failed to notice that the sorting of waste, particularly at a household level, is becoming increasingly important. While the various EU countries currently take different stances on how and which waste to separate, the trend will be to separate as much useful waste as possible and deal with it in the most appropriate manner.

Separating the different elements found in waste streams is essential for enabling the recovery of useful materials, minimizing the amount of material sent to landfill and allowing recyclable materials to find a new incarnation. Companies sort and recycle materials in order to extract value, but those operating in EU Member States are also bound by EU rules and regulations relating to the environment.

26-

- May

Separation technologies Waste disposal companies dealing with the sorting of materials will commonly use one or more of these five methods: • Trommel separators/drum screens These separate materials according to their particle size. Waste is fed into a large rotating drum which is perforated with holes of a certain size. Materials smaller than the diameter of the holes will be able to drop through, but larger particles will remain in the drum.

• Eddy current separator This method is specifically for the separation of metals.

An ‘eddy current’ occurs when a conductor is exposed to a changing magnetic field. Put simply, it is an electromagnetic way of dividing ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

• Induction sorting Material is sent along a conveyor belt with a series of

sensors underneath. These sensors locate different types of metal which are then separated by a system of fast air jets which are linked to the sensors.

• Near infrared sensors (NIR) When materials are illuminated they mostly reflect light in the near infrared wavelength spectrum. The NIR sensor can distinguish between different materials based on the way they reflect light.

• X-ray technology X-rays can be used to distinguish between different types of waste based on their density.

Manual sorting It should also be mentioned that manual sorting of waste is still very much a technique that is used in the world today.

Danish company M&J says many of its shredders are bought by companies that want to use them prior to material being

sorted by hand on so-called manual picking lines. M&J has shredders that can produce large-sized particles, making it easier for those hand-sorting the waste to do their jobs effectively.

Those companies paving the way in the sorting of waste use the aforementioned technologies, but are also constantly developing new and more effective methods. In sorting there is a multitude of ways to get the job done. This article aims to provide a flavour of the most common, as well as the most innovative, methods of sorting being used by European waste disposal companies today. We do not have the space to go into detail on every method currently available and in use, but hope this article serves to give an overall impression of the technologies employed in today’s market and their value to society.

Mobile sorting With today’s recycling culture, sorting is surely set to increase. Not all companies can transport the waste to their own plants in order to separate it , sometimes this work needs to be done on site.

Mobile sorting machines are therefore a must, and one company that is leading the way in this field in waste screening is Doppstadt with its SM series of mobile sorters.

The SM series uses drum screens and is adaptable to a variety of uses. There are four different machines to choose from depending on the type and size of waste to be sorted, and each of them includes features designed to make them easy to maintain, keep clean and transport. The rotating drums have rotating brushes to keep them from getting clogged up and are capable of dealing with heavy materials. They employ a patented load-sensing technology which optimizes the flow of material through the drum and the machines benefit from short set-up times as they have hydraulically-folding discharge conveyors. The SM series can sort anything from compost to construction waste and soil to materials excavated from landfill.

Just one example of a use for mobile sorting technology is a plant set up

by Cesaro Mac Import in Italy using Doppstadt machinery. As well as a

shredding machine this plant makes use of a screening station, SST 1025, with a 40 mm trommel screen. The plant processes waste that is the by-product of paper recycling. This waste comprises paper rejects and sludges. These rejects or foreign fibres can be processed once they are separated and their calorific value is useful , so it is important to use effective technology that can remove this matter from the sludge. The Doppstadt screens in Italy process 550 tonnes of rejects each day.

Enhanced resolution One of the key features of companies leading the way in today’s market is the ability to sort the increasingly diverse range of materials coming through, and deal with them appropriately. Titech, a global company with its headquarters in Norway, has long been aware of this issue and has been spearheading technologies which have now been adopted across the industry. The 15-year-old company sorts a huge range of materials; everything from plastic bottles and WEEE to construction and industrial waste. It places a great deal of importance on research and development. It knows that new materials will be created, but the need to dispose of them correctly will also be paramount. In light of this it uses a diverse range of sensor technology in order to get the purest fractions from every waste stream.

The sensor technologies applied at Titech include: NIR (near infrared), which recognizes different materials based on their spectral properties of reflected light; CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key) sorts paper or carton that has been printed using CMYK; VIS (visual spectrometry) recognizes all colours that are visible and works for both transparent and opaque objects; EM (electromagnetic) sorts metals with electromagnetic properties, as well as sorting metals from non-metals and recovers stainless steel or metallic compounds; RGB sorts specifically in the colour spectrums of red, green and blue for specialized applications and X-ray sorts by recognizing the atomic density of materials. This enables Titech to achieve a high purity level regardless of size, moisture or pollution level.

Another emerging technology is MIR (mid infrared) which works on a similar principle to NIR, but projects light in the

mid infrared range onto materials to be analyzed. French company Pellenc ST has been piloting this technology in 2008 as a more efficient way to separate paper and cardboard. Traditionally machines have employed the same technology used to sort plastics, i.e. colour sorting methods, to sort paper and cardboard but this results in a much lower level of efficiency. Pellenc ST says its new MIR method brings efficiency levels up to 90% which is an improvement of around 30%.

The range of sensors used at Titech gives us a good indication of the direction the European, and indeed global, sorting market is taking. The company’s flagship machines at the moment are the Titech Finder, which can take a high throughput of material and achieve excellent purity, and the Titech Polysort Flake, which can sort smaller particles at extremely high resolution. As many readers will know, Titech has recently expanded its operations by forming a partnership with leading German company CommoDas, which has further increased the range of materials that it is capable of sorting.

German company RTT has been operating since 1990 and is famous for its trademarked Unisort machines which have been tailored to specific waste streams. The Unisort CB, for example, salvages circuit boards from WEEE, while the Unisort P can sort a wide range of polymers, papers and more using NIR technology.

The company has always been ahead of the game and its response to the demand for high resolution has been another of its successes. The Unisort Flake deals with waste at a fraction size of 3 50 mm and can be programmed with specific criteria for every waste stream.

As with most sensor sorting machines, the waste is fed in on a conveyor belt under the sensors which then instruct the high-pressure air jets to separate the waste into the appropriate containers Compact sorting So, with the high level of variation in waste streams it usually takes a combination of technologies to separate it all successfully and the stream may May -

- 27

RECYCLING also need more than one run through the filtering machine. But these days, customers are increasingly demanding.

They want a machine that can separate as much waste as quickly as possible and, with the size of machines also a factor, they are looking for something that takes up the least amount of space.

Enter S+S Separation and Sorting technology GmbH and its Varisort Compact system, which had its grand unveiling at the 2008 IFAT show. This Bavarian company focuses on the detection and separation of contaminants from material streams, and has worked hard to produce a machine that industry professionals would see as a good investment. S+S obviously knows its market. The Varisort machine combines inductive, optical and NIR sensors which can run simultaneously, and its accuracy of detection is impressive sorting up to 500,000 parts per second. It also includes high-speed valves which can process up to 500 switching cycles per second.

28-

- May

Its modest size means it appeals to those companies for whom space is a factor.

And it is also impressive to note that its lack of stature has in no way compromised its ability to separate waste. S+S has simply made its shorter conveyor belt faster and the compressed air blasts even more precise in order to make sure the job is done properly. Peter Mayer, Sorting Sales Manager at S+S says ‘Because of its outstanding flexibility the Varisort Compact system is ideal for sorting electronic waste. Irrespective of the type of electronic waste that needs to be sorted, the Varisort Compact can always optimally perform the sorting task by employing different sensors.’

For companies that deal with large-scale waste such as WEEE, a compact sorting machine like this can be a godsend.

With any recycling technology one must consider that it is only ever one part of a larger processing system, which usually comprises several machines and takes up a large amount of space.

One cog in a larger wheel Sorting is, of course, just a single element of the waste disposal/recovery process.

But it is a vital part and can come at almost any stage in the life of the waste stream once the material has been discarded. With this in mind the big players in the sorting market have to remain flexible and provide technology that can cope with literally any type of waste. Obviously, technology which is designed to deal with small scale flakes cannot also cope with large scale WEEE or wet agricultural waste, but companies are trying to get as close as they can to developing machines that are multi-purpose and combine technologies to do several different jobs at once.

Toratec’s EcoTowerSort® is designed for separating metal fractions, but sorts its waste stream in several different stages using different types of technology. This means it is able to combine different waste processing methods which would have previously required more than

one machine. Its combinations of eddy currents, inductive metal sensors, optical camera sensors and NIR enable it to give the purest resulting waste streams possible. Customers looking to buy an EcoTowerSort are able to specify the waste streams they usually deal with and purchase a machine with the exact combination of technologies they need.

From Europe to China German company EuRec Technology GmbH is particularly noteworthy as a company which is versatile in its handling of waste. As part of its offering a complete line of processing technologies, EuRec favours inclusion of a disc separator to provide solutions for a number of mixed waste streams. The disc separators can screen crushed waste, compost and brown coal, process reclaimed material from landfill, process waste incineration ash and separate inert materials from incineration plants as well as sewage sludge and other cohesive materials.

The ability to deal with both wet and dry materials makes this technology ideal for taking on large-scale mixed waste disposal operations.

One such project EuRec has recently embarked upon is a waste treatment plant in China. The plant deals with municipal solid waste from a district of Beijing.

The multi-component domestic waste goes through the mechanical treatment process and is then separated into useful materials. This may be a relatively new approach in China, but is commonplace at established mechanical-biological treatment plants in Germany and Europe.

The limits on the amount of organic or biodegradable waste imposed by the European Landfill Directive means that technology such as EuRec’s disc separators have even more value in today’s marketplace. Technology that can cope with organic and solid waste together enables waste disposal companies to fulfill these requirements in an efficient

and cost-effective way.

An increasingly global market Eurec’s move to China shows that the demand for effective and efficient sorting is becoming increasingly global. And another German company which has now spread its reach into Asia is sorting giant Steinert GmbH which specializes in the separation of metals.

At the company’s global sales conference in April 2008 it signed contracts with its Japanese partners in order to establish Steinert Japan, a joint venture for which Steinert GmbH has the majority share.

Discussions at the conference also covered the various global marketing methods for recycling and recovery (and therefore sorting) of waste. Each area of the world approaches its waste differently and therefore Steinert GmbH will be applying different strategies in its worldwide marketing. The company felt that its global sales meeting provided a great platform to discuss these different opportunities and optimize the benefits it is able to provide to its customers.

On a global scale the opportunities for waste handling companies are increasing alongside increased global awareness of environmental issues, and recovery is set to become all the more important in areas such as minerals processing, electronic scrap, metal recycling, refuse and the food industry.

To mingle or not to mingle?

To get the most from a waste stream, and decrease the chances of residuals going to landfill, companies need to know what is in it so they can select the best methods of sorting. Local authorities in particular are open to criticism when collecting household residual waste if they don’t have the access to appropriate technology to make the best use of the waste streams coming in.

This point highlights that issues concerned with effective sorting (and subsequent recycling) cannot be addressed by manufacturers of sorting equipment alone.

May -

- 29

LEGAL

RELEVANT LEGISLATION FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT

B

ILL OF RIGHTS: CONSTITUTION SECTION 24

• Every-one has the right to an Environment that is not harmful to their health or well being • To have the environment protected for the benefit of our future generations by implementing systems that take into consideration sustainable development • Each person has the right and responsibility to protect that environment NEMA (Act 107 of 1998): To provide for co-operative environmental governance by establishing principles for decision-making on matters affecting the environment, institutions that will promote cooperative governance and procedures for co-coordinating environmental functions exercised by organs of state; to provide for certain aspects of the administration and enforcement of other

30-

- May

environmental management laws; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

OHSA (Act 85 of 1993): To provide for the health and safety of persons at work and for the health and safety of persons

Health Care Waste Management in South Africa is controlled by various Acts and Regulations, By-Laws and National Standards in connection with the use of plant and machinery; the protection of persons other than persons at work against hazards to health and safety arising out of or in connection with the activities of persons at work; to establish an advisory council for occupational health and safety; and to provide for matters connected

therewith.

NEM Waste Act (Act 59 of 2008): To reform the law regulating waste management in order to protect health and the environment by providing reasonable measures for the prevention of pollution and ecological degradation and for securing ecologically sustainable development; to provide for institutional arrangements and planning matters; to provide for national norms and standards for regulating the management of waste by all spheres of government; National Road Traffic Act (Act 93 of 1996): To provide for road traffic matters which shall apply uniformly throughout the Republic and for matters connected therewith CHAPTER 8: Dangerous goods: Transportation of certain dangerous goods

prohibited 54. No person shall, except as prescribed, offer for transportation in a vehicle, or transport in a vehicle, or accept after transportation in, on or by a vehicle, any prescribed dangerous goods.

National Water Act (36 of 1998): Controls the pollution of water by any waste, which includes solid material that is suspended, dissolved or transported in water (including sediment) and which is spilled or deposited on land or into a water resource in such volume, composition or manner as to cause, or to be reasonably likely to cause, the water resource to be polluted.

National Health Act (Act 61 of 2003): To provide a framework for a structured uniform health system within the Republic, taking into account the obligations imposed by the Constitution and other laws on the national, provincial and local governments with regard to health services; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

RECOGNITION The socio-economic injustices, imbalances and inequities of health services of The need to heal the divisions of the past and to establish a society based on The need to improve the quality of life of all citizens and to free the potential he past; democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights; of each person; National Waste Management Strategy: HCWM “Improved Health Care Waste Management: Sustainable and integrated Health Care Waste Management in South Africa, established within the frames of the NWMS, covering the full waste stream for all generators of HCW

from areas with varying population densities and varying degrees of accessibility” DWAF Minimum Requirements: Minimum Requirements for the Handling, Classification and Disposal of Hazardous Waste, sets out the waste classification system. In this, wastes are placed in two classes, General or Hazardous, according to their inherent toxicological properties.

Hazardous wastes are further subdivided, according to the risk that they may pose at disposal, using a hazard rating.

In this way, a less hazardous waste is distinguished from an extremely hazardous waste. Wastes with a hazard rating of 1 or 2 are very or extremely hazardous, while wastes with a hazard rating of 3 of 4 are of moderate or low hazard. The requirements for pre-treatment and disposal are appropriately set in accordance with the waste classification. Hazardous waste prevention and minimization are briefly addressed, because of their importance, as is handling, transportation and storage.

MUNICIPAL BY-LAWS: City of Cape Town Environmental Health By-Law (Part 3: Medical Waste Management) City of JHB Metro Municipality Waste Management By-Law (Part 5: Special Industrial, hazardous and healthcare risk waste) Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Municipality Health By-Law (Chapter 8, Part 3: Health Care Waste) • Eden District Municipal Health By-Law (Part 3: Health Care Waste) SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL STANDARD CODES

10248: 2004-Management of Health Care Waste This Standard lay down provision for the safe and effective management of healthcare waste in order to reduce potential risk to people’s health and risks to the environment.

10248-1: 2008 – Management of Healthcare Waste from a Healthcare Facility This Standard lays down minimum provisions for the safe and effective management of healthcare risk waste generated by healthcare facilities and other places where healthcare professionals work in order to reduce potential risks to humans and to the environment.

The management of healthcare risk waste covers the generation, the packaging, the treatment and the disposal (cradle-tograve) of the waste.

SANS 10229-1: 2010 Transport of Dangerous Goods-Packaging and large packaging for road and rail transport This SANS Code identifies various methods of packaging that are suitable for prescribed maximum quantities of dangerous goods that may be offered for the transport by road or rail.

Also the minimum performance requirements for the packaging, the procedures to be followed to obtain approval from testing or certification authorities and gives details of labels and marking to be displayed on the packaging.

SANS 452: 200X Reusable and Non-Reusable Sharps Containers This standard covers requirements for non-reusable and reusable containers used for the collection, transportations and processing of sharps objects (sharps) used in human and animal medical applications.

May -

- 31

advert

advert

ENERGY

Converting Waste to Energy

A

Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier will convert a wide variety of waste streams into a clean syngas which can be further altered to create other forms of energy.

A plasma gasifier is an oxygen starved vessel where various feedstocks can be gasified using the very high temperatures achievable with plasma. Rather than being combusted, the heat breaks the feedstock down into elements like hydrogen and simple compounds like carbon monoxide and water. The gas that is created is called synthesis gas or “syngas”.

The syngas created in the gasifier, which contains dust (particulates) and other undesirable elements like mercury, undergoes a clean-up process to make it suitable for conversion into other forms of energy including power, heat and liquid fuels. The syngas clean-up process is tailored to meet the requirements of each

34-

- May

project. In most cases, especially where municipal solid waste (MSW) is the feedstock, the syngas clean-up will include particulate removal, sulphur removal and mercury/heavy metals removal.

Plasma gasification differs from non-plasma gasification in one key area – temperature. The temperatures inside a Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier reach over 3000 °C. The higher temperatures inside our plasma gasifier results in the complete destruction of tars. Non plasma gasifiers typically operate between 800 and 900 °C and cannot eliminate tars during operations. As it is very difficult to remove tars downstream of a gasifier, the utility of the syngas produced by non-plasma gasifiers is very limited.

Syngas produced by non-plasma gasifiers can be burned immediately to produce power but it cannot be conditioned for use in gas turbines, reciprocating engines or for conversion into liquid fuels.

In summary, a Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier enables the conversion of difficult feedstocks like MSW into a clean syngas that is suitable for use in advanced conversion technologies such as high efficiency gas turbines or next generation liquid fuels technologies. In the near future, we expect to power fuel cells with syngas from our gasifier.

Plasma Gasification Process Plasma gasification is a multi-stage process which starts with feed inputs ranging from waste to coal to plant matter, and can include hazardous wastes. The first step is to process the feed stock to make it uniform and dry, and have the valuable recyclables sorted out. The second step is gasification, where extreme heat from the plasma torches is applied inside a sealed, air-controlled reactor. During gasification, carbon-based materials break down

into gases and the inorganic materials melt into liquid slag which is poured off and cooled. The heat causes hazards and poisons to be completely destroyed.

The third stage is gas clean-up and heat recovery, where the gases are scrubbed of impurities to form clean fuel, and heat exchangers recycle the heat back into the system as steam. The final stage is fuel production the output can range from electricity to a variety of fuels as well as chemicals, hydrogen and polymers.

Gasification has a long history in industry where it has been used to refine coal and biomass into a variety of liquid fuels, gases and chemicals. Modern clean coal plants are all gasifiers, and so were the earliest 19th century municipal light and power systems.

Plasma gasification refers to the use of plasma torches as the heat source, as opposed to conventional fires and furnaces.

Plasma torches have the advantage of being one of the most intense heat sources available while being relatively simple to operate.

Plasma is a superheated column of electrically conductive gas. In nature, plasma is found in lightning and on the surface of the sun. Plasma torches burn at temperatures approaching 5500ºC (10,000˚F) and can reliably destroy any materials found on earth with the exception of nuclear waste.

Plasma torches are used in foundries to melt and cut metals. When utilized for waste treatment, plasma torches are very efficient at causing organic and carbonaceous materials to vaporize into gas.

Non-organic materials are melted and cool into a vitrified glass.

Waste gasification typically operates at temperatures of 1500˚C (2700˚F), and at those temperatures materials are subject to a process called molecular disassociation, meaning their molecular bonds are broken down and in the process all toxins and organic poisons are destroyed.

Plasma torches have been used for many years to destroy chemical weapons and toxic wastes, like printed circuit boards (PCBs) and asbestos, but it is only recently that these processes have been optimized for energy capture and fuel production.

America’s Westinghouse Corporation began building plasma torches with NASA for the Apollo Space Program in the 1960s to test the heat shields for spacecraft at 5500˚C. In the late 1990s, the first pilot-scale plasma gasification projects were built in Japan to convert MSW, sewage sludge, and auto-shredder residue to energy. The Japanese pilot plants have been successful, and commercial-scale projects are under development now in Canada and other countries, by companies such as Alter NRG, from Alberta, Canada.

Economics The economics of MSW plasma gasification are favourable, although complex.

Waste gasification facilities get paid for their intake of waste, via tipping fees.

The system then earns revenues from the sale of power produced. Electricity is the primary product today, but liquid fuels, hydrogen, and synthetic natural gas are

all possibilities for the future.

Sorting the MSW to capture commodity recyclables, such as metals and high-value plastics, presents a third revenue stream. Minor revenue streams include the sales of slag and sulphur. Slag has the potential to be used for a number of construction products, such as rock wool, bricks and architectural tiles, and sulphur has some commodity value as fertilizer.

Additional costs are avoided by diverting waste from landfills and minimizing transportation of waste. Government subsidies for renewable energy or carbon credits may be substantial in the future, but are difficult to project.

A base case scenario with a 680 tonne per day (750 US tons) waste gasification plant which would be appropriate for a small city or regional facility, would cost an estimated $150 million (€108 million) to construct. A municipality that funds the entire project through bonds should seek a positive cash flow year-after-year via revenues from tipping fees, recyclables and electricity sales, as well as sales of slag and sulphur. There is considerable range in the values for each of these variables, and any proposed development would require extensive due diligence to determine local prices for each line item.

Tipping fees, electricity rates, commodity recyclables, as well as interest rates and taxes, all vary dramatically creating a model which needs to be thoroughly evaluated for any proposed development.

The economics of waste gasification heavily favour recycling inorganic materials like metal and glass have no value as fuel and make the gasification process

May -

- 35

ENERGY less efficient, even though plasma torches have the ability to melt them. High-value plastics and papers that can be readily separated are far more valuable as recyclables than as fuel. Certain plastics earn €195 per tonne ($300 per US ton) and certain types of paper can earn around €53 per tonne ($75 per US ton). For comparison, a tonne of waste may produce 0.8 MW of electricity, worth around €51 ($70) per MW. It is clear that any of these materials that can be separated and sold, are worth much more as commodities than as fuel.

Wide Variety of Inputs and Outputs There are additional waste streams available in certain locations which earn higher tipping fees than MSW because they are toxic and yet have excellent fuel value. Refinery wastes from petroleum and chemical plants, medical waste, auto-shredder residue, construction debris, tyres and telegraph poles, are all examples of potential fuels that can earn high tipping fees and provide good heat value. Additionally, there are millions of tonnes of low-grade waste coal that exist in massive piles throughout the Appalachian region of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, US, that can be utilized for gasification.

Multiple outputs can be produced from a single facility. Heat and steam can be sold, and electricity production can be combined with ethanol or hydrogen production to maximize resources. Hydrogen can be readily produced from syngas by separating it from the carbon and oxygen, while synthetic natural gas can be produced by upgrading the methane content of syngas.

Liquid fuels are typically produced from syngas through catalytic conversion processes such as Fischer-Tropsch which has been widely used since World War II to produce motor fuels from coal.

Biotech methods to produce liquid fuels are also being developed to use enzymes or micro-organisms to make the conversion.

Much research and effort is being put into developing more selective catalysts and productive enzymes which will raise system efficiencies to levels needed to be competitive. Currently, ethanol from gasification costs more than $2 a gallon (equivalent of €0.37 per litre), and it is 36-

- May

estimated that production needs to cost closer to $1.25 (€0.90) or $1.50 (€1.10).

Production of ethanol at demonstration scale has shown that one US ton of MSW can produce around 100 gallons (equivalent of 0.9 tonnes producing 380 litres) of ethanol, give or take 20%. Cost estimation for ethanol production is difficult, but rough calculations indicate that ethanol could potentially be more profitable than electricity.

Improved Waste Management Gasification is superior to landfilling MSW for a number of reasons. First of all, landfills are toxic to the environment due to the production of toxic liquid leachate and methane gases. The EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) has a lengthy protocol for airborne and liquid chemicals which must be contained and monitored for every landfill. Landfills must be constructed with extensive liners, drains and monitoring equipment to comply with regulations. Plasma gasification can divert waste from landfills and create beneficial uses for the material, by maximizing recycling and cleanly using the rest for fuel.

Gasification is Superior to Incineration Gasification is superior to incineration and offers a dramatic improvement in

environmental impact and energy performance. Incinerators are high-temperature burners that use the heat generated from the fire to run a boiler and steam turbine in order to produce electricity.

During combustion, complex chemical reactions take place that bind oxygen to molecules and form pollutants, such as nitrous oxides and dioxins. These pollutants pass through the smokestack unless exhaust scrubbers are put in place to clean the gases.

Gasification by contrast is a low-oxygen process, and fewer oxides are formed.

The scrubbers for gasification are placed in line and are critical to the formation of clean gas, regardless of the regulatory environment. For combustion systems, the smokestack scrubbers offer no operational benefit and are put in place primarily to meet legal requirements. Plasma gasification systems employing proper scrubbers have extremely low emissions and no trouble meeting and beating the most stringent emissions targets.

The objective of gasification systems is to produce a clean gas used for downstream processes which requires specific chemistry, free of acids and particulates so the scrubbing is an integral component to the system engineering, as opposed to a legal requirement that must be met.

Incinerator ash is also highly toxic and is generally disposed of in landfills, while the slag from plasma gasification is safe

ment of Energy has identified gasification through its clean coal projects as a critical tool to enable carbon capture

because it is melted and reforms in a tightly-bound molecular structure.

In fact, one of the main uses for plasma torches in the hazardous waste destruction industry has been to melt toxic incinerator ash into safe slag. The glassy slag is subject to EPA Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) regulations that measure eight harmful elements. Data from existing facilities, even those processing highly hazardous waste, has shown them to be well below regulatory limits.

Electricity production from plasma gasification is superior to that from incinerator combustion. Incinerators typically use the heat from combustion to power a steam turbine to produce power. Gasification systems can use gas turbines that are far more efficient, particularly when configured in integrated gasification

combined cycle mode (IGCC). Just as IGCC is the state-of-the-art in producing power from coal, the same is true when using MSW as the fuel source.

Carbon Impact The carbon impact of plasma gasification is significantly lower than other waste treatment methods. It is rated to have a negative carbon impact, especially when compared to allowing methane to form in landfills. Gasification is also an important enabling technology for carbon separation. It is primarily a carbon processing technology; it transforms solid carbon into gas form.

Syngas is comprised of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The hydrogen readily separates from the carbon monoxide allowing the hydrogen to be used while the carbon is sequestered. The US Depart-

Environmental Opposition Environmentalists have expressed opposition to waste gasification for two main reasons. The first argument is that any waste-to-energy facility will discourage recycling and divert resources from efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Economic studies of the waste markets show the opposite to be true; waste-to-energy heavily favours the processing of waste to separate valuable commodities and to maximize its value for fuel.

The second argument made against waste gasification is that has the same emissions as incineration. These arguments are based on gasification systems which do not clean the gases and instead combust dirty syngas. Such systems are essentially two-stage burners and are not recommended for environmental reasons. There are many variations of combustion, pyrolysis and gasification all used in different combinations. Proper engineering is required to achieve positive environmental performance.

Technology Plasma gasification of MSW is a fairly new application that combines well-established sub-systems into one new system. The sub-systems are waste processing and sorting, plasma treatment, gas cleaning and energy production. The integration of these systems is rapidly maturing, but has still not been built in large industrial systems. Demonstration and pilot-scale systems are running successfully in Japan and Canada with more starting in the US and Europe.

NEWS

Lusaka Residents Urged to Embark on Making the City Clean

S

peaking in an interview in Lusaka, the LCC Assistant Public Relations Manager Mulunda Habeenzu urged the public to be conscious in the way they package and dispose waste.

Mr. Mulunda noted that some people throw waste during the night in undesignated areas, a situation he said was an offence. He said waste should only be disposed of at central points for easy collection by the council. Mr. Mulunda explained that without support and commitment from members of the public, issues of sanitation and good health could not be positively dealt with.

38-

- May

He said citizens should realize that good sanitation was not the responsibility of the council alone but for every resident of the city.

“If people at grassroots levels do not take it upon themselves to be clean and dispose waste at designated areas, it becomes hard for the council to do its job,” said Mr. Mulunda .

Mr. Mulunda said every household should exercise high levels of cleanliness and hygiene by throwing garbage and litter in supplied containers.

He added that members of the public are obliged to subscribe to the council‘s system to ensure efficiency in the collection

of garbage.

Mr. Mulunda further appealed to households to ensure that they pay for garbage collection to help the council speed up the process of collecting waste.

He said the LCC has been facing problems of purchasing fuel and other collection facilities hence the need for people to make payments.

Mr. Mulunda said the council was only mandated to collect secondary waste at central points.

He further explained that the Keep Zambia Clean Campaign can only yield positive results if the community at large ensure that they dispose waste and litter

in designated areas.

Network for Sanitation Concerns and Solutions (NESCOS) Director Lloyd Siame said the organisation targets to install 1500 waste recycling bins in Lusaka.

Speaking during the launch of waste recycling project dubbed “Waste Recycling Bin in Lusaka�.

Mr Siame said the project has since commenced and some townships roads have so far benefited.

He said the bin installing programme will be extended to all township roads in

the city.

Mr Siame disclosed that so far the project has created employment for 100 people who will be collecting and maintaining the bins.

He said NESCOS intends to carry out a sensitization programme in the communities and establish waste skills centres so that the project can be successful.

Mr Siame said NESCOS will also be collecting waste and sell to Recycling Companies who will be transforming the waste into usable products. He com-

mended the Lusaka City Council (LCC) for its quest to making sure that the city is kept clean. Action Auto Managing Director Mike Bently said his company is happy to partner with NESCOS as the initiative will help in creating a culture of cleanliness amongst people.

Mr Bently noted that the programme is going to help in lessening pollution, and contribute to the wellbeing of the economy in the country through job creation and income generation.

CORPORATE FEATURES

REVERSE LOGISTICS SOLUTION FOR PACKAGING IN MOST COMPANIES

B

oxes are collected on a regular basis, separated by order, renewed, arranged and prepared for delivery back to original user if required. This service is available to users in all industries where corrugated boxes are used to get product to markets, whether it is factory to produce or producer to retail, this service ensures that you will have that same box back for another cycle very soon.

Reverse logistics makes economical sense Cardboard Box Reuse is one of the best examples of recycling and reuse available today, it reduces the demand for paper and energy and pays the original user more than waste paper recyclers. It is the best financial and environmental solution for your cardboard waste.

The original user benefits due to the fact that it reduces its packaging cost as well as its carbon footprint when re-using 40-

- May

boxes. Less trees needs to be cut down or less boxes needs to be recycled.

The end user gets a higher price for the box than what a recycler would offer him and also reduces his carbon footprint.

What Is Hazardous Waste?

Hazardous wastes, also called controlled wastes, are very closely linked to our industrialized lifestyle, and have been an unavoidable by-product of development. These wastes are defined by regulation or policy as having physical, chemical or other properties that make them an environmental or health hazard.

Examples of these wastes include clinical waste, septic tank and grease trap waste, contaminated soil, solvents, PCBs, industrial liquid wastes, asbestos.

Hazardous wastes were being disposed in regular landfills until scientists measured unfavorable amounts of hazardous materials seeping into the ground. These chemicals eventually made their way to the water systems, and contaminated the

soil used that animals and crops, as well as the soil that people employed to build their communities.

New regulations were put into practice and many landfills now require countermeasures against groundwater contamination, an example being installing a barrier along the foundation of the landfill to contain the hazardous substances that may remain in the disposed waste. Currently, in order to enter a landfill, hazardous wastes must be stabilized and solidified, rendering them less harmful than they were in their original forms.

What are the advantages of bioremediation?

1. It is a “natural process�. It usually does not produce toxic by-products.

2.

Bioremediation destroys the target chemicals.

3. Bioremediation is usually less expensive than other technologies.

4. It can be used where the problem is located.

advert

advert

advert Apple recycles responsibly.

When you recycle with Apple, your used equipment is disassembled, and key components that can be reused are removed. Glass and metal can be reprocessed for use in new products. A majority of the plastics can be pelletized into a raw secondary material. With materials reprocessing and component reuse, Apple often achieves a 90 percent recovery rate by weight of the original product.

Apple meets the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. All e-waste collected by Apple-controlled voluntary and regulatory programs worldwide is processed in the region in which it was collected. Our recyclers must comply with all health and safety laws, and we do not allow the use of prison labor. Apple recyclers do not dispose of hazardous electronic waste in solid-waste landfills or incinerators. For an example of the stringent processing and operational controls Apple places on its directly contracted recyclers

TECHNOLOGY

Electrolux get to grips

I

n this area, appliances manufacturer Electrolux’s aims are pioneering and ambitious. Cecilia Nord, the director responsible for sourcing at Electrolux states their goal as “targeting sustainability leadership in the appliance industry”.

Cecilia’s approach extended beyond simply exploring where they could incorporate post-consumer plastics in the business’s supply chain; she wanted to spark dialogue too. “Our vision was to raise awareness of environmental issues, stimulate greater supply of plastics, and

44-

- May

show the potential use, and to boost the distribution and sales of green home appliance products.’

My other car’s (still) a Porsche To begin to make these changes, the company decided to explore recycling cars, which can yield huge amounts of plastic everywhere from batteries to bumpers, in the creation of their new vacuums. This, however, is the relatively easy part. Finding a sustainable and economically effective way of sourcing

these plastics can be more of a challenge.

Not for Electrolux. By teaming up with global post-consumer plastics specialist MBA Polymers, it was able to source sustainable supplies of recycled plastics for the vacuum’s components. Cecilia Nord commented: “Choosing the source for the material was one of the most difficult obstacles in the path of developing the Ultra Silencer Green because every type of recycled plastic had to be tested for quality and durability for the relevant component. Electrolux eventually teamed up with MBA Polymers...”

with recycled plastics

The result is a vacuum whose green credentials cannot be questioned. Electrolux’s Ultra Silencer vacuum is made from 55 per cent recycled polypropylene, saving over two litres of crude oil and 80 litres of water per unit, as well as reducing manufacturing energy consumption by 90 per cent. Yet environmental credentials do not come at the expense of durability, and all products are developed to withstand 10 years of normal usage.

If all of the 20 million vacuum cleaners that are sold annually in Europe were

built in the same way, some 1.6 million cubic meters of water, and 251,000 barrels of oils could be saved.

The success of the project led Electrolux to explore how else it could use recycled plastics in its products and raise awareness of just how scarce recycled plastics are at present on land. For there is one area of the world where there is a surfeit of plastics that could be recycled.

Vac from the sea Anyone who has watched the plastic

bottles bobbing forlornly in the sea while on holiday will know that the amount of plastic waste going into our oceans is a problem. What they may not realise is the extent of this problem, and that the damage goes way beyond aesthetics.

For example, around 20,000 tonnes of garbage is dumped in the North Sea every year, doing huge damage to the environment.

For Electrolux’s next foray into recycled plastics, they decided this was a fitting area to explore. Cecilia Nord commented: “Our oceans are filled with plastic

May -

- 45

TECHNOLOGY waste. Yet on the land, there is a shortage of recycled plastics to make sustainable vacuum cleaners.” Electrolux’s solution was to work with local recycling organisations to recycle plastic and create a series of vacuums made from plastics recycled from the coastal areas all over the World, and to showcase them in a PR campaign introduced in 2010 – Vac from the Sea. The vacuums themselves are highly attractive. For example in St Cyr-sur-Mer, France, the company teamed up with the Surfrider Foundation to collect plastic – such as beverage bottles, beach toys and even shoes - that had been washed

up on the beach. The plastic gathered in this way from the Mediterranean was cut into heart shaped pieces and then attached to a thin shell of industrially recycled plastic to create the vecuum cleaner on the right Off the coast of the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand, coral reef divers Blue View Divers gathered plastics that had been abandoned in the sea. What was found was everything from discarded beer bottles, straws, to huge chunks of Styrofoam. The total rubbish collected over the two day cleanup event amounted to 962 kilos. The collected plastics intended for the concept vac were split

in a shredder into small square pieces.

The white and coloured plastic squares were then mounted in a pattern that covers the entire top and the hub caps on the vacuum cleaner, while pieces from plastic bottles with brighter colours were used as accents.

Global reach The Vac from the Sea initiative was a huge success. Between 2010 and 2012 the vacuum cleaners went on a world tour, and were displayed everywhere from the Milano Museum of Science and Technology to Australian Sustainability Days to raise awareness of the problem of plastic debris in the oceans.

The striking appearance of the vacuums also generated both print and broadcast coverage across the world. Nord commented: “Since the start, more than 200 million people have been engaged by “Vac from the Sea”, through print, online or social media. What’s perhaps even more important is that materials with a superior sustainability profile have been introduced into the household appliance industry and are now being used across the company.

She concluded: ‘The real victory is that “Vac from the Sea” has raised awareness of the scarcity of recycled plastic - not just in green communities but in the broad masses.’

advert

TECHNOLOGY

How effective are Apple’s recycling programs

A

pple doesn’t appear to spend much time worrying about complaints regarding its pricing policies, but complaints about its environmental footprint have been a corporate priority for years. Indeed, to its credit, Apple has been at the forefront of technology industry efforts to use fewer, and greener, materials in the construction of electronic devices. Even better, Apple is apparently making an effort to refurbish on its own and, when necessary, recycle the products that it manufactures.

Of course, Apple doesn’t engage in green practices only for the good of the earth; it also engages in them knowing that an environmentally minded consumer—like me—is much more likely to buy a phone

48-

- May

from a company that promises to take back and recycle an old one.

The FAQ for the Apple Recycling Program includes this text: “By participating in the Apple Recycling Program you are helping the environment by extending the useful life of products that have value in the secondary electronics market. You are also ensuring that products that have reached the end of their useful life are recycled in an environmentally responsible manner in North America.”

The phrasing is interesting: Note how Apple claims to recycle in North America, but gives no details on where it refurbishes and sells refurbished equipment.

More likely than not, the refurbishment takes place outside North America (Apple responded to my inquiries, but would

not reveal the location of the refurbishment facilities), where labor costs make the work affordable—and customers for lower-cost Apple products are plentiful. I have no problem with that: Offering technically oriented employment to people in poor countries is a good thing. Offering refurbished goods to people who can’t afford new is an even better thing.

I input the details of my current phone into the Apple website, and it informs me that I’ll receive a $215 gift card in exchange for it—$215 that I’m free to apply to an iPhone 5. It’s a great deal for me: I’ll save money on a new phone with the knowledge that I’ve behaved in a green, sustainable manner. But is it really such a hot deal for the planet?

In January 2013, we had results of two experiments that should concern anyone who embraces recycling as a means to preserve natural resources and promote a sustainable lifestyle. In the first, researchers asked study participants to evaluate a new product—in this case, scissors—by cutting up paper in various, preordained configurations. Half of the study participants did the evaluation in the presence of a trash bin only, and half did it in the presence of a trash bin and a recycling bin. The results were troubling: Those who performed the task in the presence of a recycling bin used twice as much paper as those who could only throw their excess paper in a trash bin. “This suggests that the addition of a recycling option can lead to increased resource usage,” wrote the authors.

The second experiment took place in a more natural setting: a university men’s room. For 15 days, the researchers measured the daily number of paper hand towels tossed into the trash bins positioned next to the sinks. Then they repeated the experiment by adding a recycling bin and “signs indicating that certain campus restrooms were participating in a paper hand towel recycling program and that any used hand towels placed in the bin would be recycled.”

After 15 days, the researchers ran the data and found that restroom visitors used approximately half a hand towel more when a recycling bin was present than when there was only a trash bin. That may not seem like much, but consider: on an average day, 100 people visited the restroom, meaning that—on average— the recycling bin (and associated signage) likely contributed to the use of an additional

50 paper hand towels per day. Extend that usage out to the 250 business days per year that the restroom is used, and in that one university restroom an additional 12,500 towels would, theoretically, be tossed into the recycling bin, annually!

The recycling option...may instead signal to consumers that it is acceptable to consume as long as they recycle the used product.

Isn’t recycling supposed to promote conservation and preserve the environment?

Why are people using more hand towels if a recycling bin is present? And does this have anything to do with my newfound willingness to buy an iPhone when I don’t need to replace my current one?

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Cardboard and paper cannot be recycled infinitely. Depending on the type of paper, the individual fibers can only survive intact for perhaps six or seven trips through the energy-intensive process required to turn them into new boxes and new sheets of paper. Likewise, many plastics can only survive one turn through the recycling process before having to be “down-cycled” into unrecyclable prod-

ucts like plastic lumber for backyard decks.

Metals are a different story. Theoretically, a copper wire can be recycled indefinitely, but that assumes the wire itself is easy to harvest. Extracting copper from a power cable is a relatively easy process; extracting copper from an iPod is quite difficult and usually results in some loss—especially when done by recyclers in the developed world who depend on shredders and high-tech to sort the wires from the rest of the materials. However, even relatively simple, well-trod recycling processes, like the one used to recycle an old beer can into a new one, result in some loss of metal along the way, ranging from cans that fall off trucks to metal vaporized in furnaces.

Then there are the things that we’d like to think are recyclable, but simply aren’t.

Take, for example, an iPhone screen.

Glass, in general, is an easily recycled substance that often isn’t for one very simple reason: the primary ingredient— sand—is cheap, and thus there’s little commercial incentive for a business to seek out and remelt used glass.

An iPhone touchscreen isn’t made from the same glass as a beer bottle. Rather, it contains a range of so-called rare earth elements.

Of course, an iPhone touchscreen isn’t made from the same glass as a beer bottle. Rather, it contains a range of so-called rare earth elements, including indium, a valuable mineral that—at the time I write this chapter— costs more than $200 per pound. Alas, there is no commercially viable means of extracting indium from touch-screen glass, and there is unlike-

May -

- 49

TECHNOLOGY ly to be one (the amount of indium in a touch screen doesn’t amount to more than a pinch, rendering its extraction a very dubious business indeed). For the foreseeable future, indium—one of the rarest of elements—will likely be mined, used in a single iPhone, and then lost for good.

Nothing—nothing—is 100 percent recyclable, and many things, including things we think are recyclable, like iPhone touch screens, are unrecyclable. Everyone from the local junkyard to Apple to the U.S. government would be doing the planet a very big favor if they stopped implying otherwise, and instead conveyed a more realistic picture of what recycling can and can’t do.

Of course, if Apple included that kind of information on the webpage where it explains its recycling program, it might not receive so many old iPhones for recycling, or sell so many new iPhones to sustainably minded consumers like me.

It’s a point that Jesse Catlin and Yitong Wang, authors of the two recycling experiments in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, make in the very last sentence of their paper: “Therefore, an important issue would be to identify ways to nudge consumers toward recycling while also making them aware that recycling is not a

perfect solution and that reducing overall consumption is desirable as well.”

Tight design If the goal is a realistic sustainable future, then it’s necessary to take a look at what we can do to lengthen the lives of the products we’re going to buy anyway. One way to do that: Demand that companies start designing products for repair, reuse, and recycling.

Take, for example, the super-thin MacBook Air, a wonder of modern design packed into an aluminum case that’s barely bigger than a handful of documents in a manila envelope. At first glance, it would seem to be a sustainable wonder that uses fewer raw materials to do more.

But that’s just the gloss; the reality is that the MacBook Air’s thin profile means that its components—memory chips, solid-state drive, and processor—are packed so tightly in the case that there’s no room for upgrades (a point driven home by the unusual screws used to hold the case together, thus making home repair even more difficult).

Even worse, from the perspective of recycling, the thin profile (and the tightly packed innards) means that the computer is exceptionally difficult to break down into individual components when

it comes time to recycle it. In effect, the MacBook Air is a machine built to be shredded, not repaired, upgraded, and reused. Theoretically, it should be possible to make desirable, thin electronics that are easily repairable, and easier to disassemble and recycle. Traditional PC desktops, for example, allow for the easy switching out of old components for new ones as technology evolves. New memory, a new hard drive, and a new video card: these are installations that anybody with a screwdriver can perform. They save money, and they reduce— not eliminate—the demand for raw materials necessary to make wholly new machines.

Finally, when it comes time to recycle, the old modular desktops are easy to break down into their component parts.

For consumers hoping to do something about the growing volume of e-waste piling up, worldwide, a campaign to demand that manufacturers introduce design for recycling principles into new products would go a long way to keeping electronics out of landfills for the long term. At the same time, consumers can encourage the development of reuse by buying refurbished machines themselves.

Dell, Apple, and other leading electronics manufacturers market refurbished products with full warranties; the next time you’re in the market for a new device, why not consider one of those?

WASTE < LESS THESE JEANS ARE MADE OF GABBAGE

TECHNOLOGY

VINYL REBORN--CLOSING THE CIRCLE FOR PVC WASTE line enabled the firm to begin treating PVC waste that contained fibre. Finally, a centrifugal decanter was added to purify the solvent/PVC solution.

“What we discovered through time and effort was that if you want to treat difficult scrap you need high technology.

If you want to treat very difficult scrap you need very high technology. We spent more or less 10 years to completely manage the process,” says Groppi.

How It Works

L

ed by the PVC industry’s voluntary commitments to recycling, first in the form of Vinyl2010 and more recently its successor, VinylPlus, over recent years there have been huge strides made in the recycling of PVC wastes in Europe.

According to the organisation’s latest report, in 2013 the recycled volumes of PVC wastes saw a significant increase to 444,468 tonnes in, despite adverse economic conditions. Contributing to this achievement was the consolidation of waste streams, as well as the involvement of converters contributing industrial waste in the Recovinyl system.

Recovinyl itself is the organisation that was originally setup by Vinyl210 in order to oversee PVC recycling. More recently VinylPlus charged it with optimising resource efficiency by mediating between recyclers based on a PVC recyclate certification system.

However, VinylPlus also has the ambition that 100,000 tonnes per year of ‘difficult to recycle’ PVC waste should be recycled using ‘innovative technologies’.

One firm that’s been doing just that for several years already is Ferrara, Italy based VinyLoop. the company is a part-

54-

- May

nership between one of Europe’s largest PVC producers, Solvay Vinyls and French composite materials manufacturer, Serge Ferarri.

The firm originally inaugurated its 10,000 tonne per year facility in Ferrara back in 2002. The plant uses a physical, solvent based technology that is able to recycle difficult to treat, end of life PVC waste, and produce high quality R-PVC (recycled PVC) compounds.

On a recent visit to the plant, Paolo Groppi, general manager VinyLoop explained that in the twelve years since the plant opened, a lot of development work has been done to refine the process. The main challenge, he says, lay in tuning the process to produce a high quality, consistent R-PVC from complex PVC composite materials.

The plant uses a selective dissolution and filtration process to remove contaminants and produce R-PVC. In the early days the engineers refining this process implemented a number of improvements to achieve full control. These included the installation of a pre-treatment stage, fine tuning of the filtration stage and the addition of a new line to complement the one dedicated to cable scraps. The new

On a tour of the facility, Francesco Tarantino, Vinyloop’s plant manager, explains that the technology works by dissolving PVC waste using a patented solvents that runs in a closed loop. The feedstock, such as PVC insulation jackets from end of life cables, is stored in a series of bunkers. Prior to being dissolved the cable jackets are shredded and passed through a pre-treatment process to recover any remaining copper.

The dissolution of the PVC is carried out in two different dissolvers. Waste composite materials that are free from fibres are processed in the D2 dissolver, while waste with a high fibre content, such as end-of-life tarpaulins, are dissolved in the Texyloop D3 dissolver.

Only the PVC and all of its additives are dissolved in the dissolution units, insoluble contaminants are not. The resulting solution is then passed from the dissolver to a primary filter where solid impurities are separated and removed before the remaining solution is sent to the Centrifugal Decanter for purification.

According to Tarantino the Centrifugal Decanter is the best technology available for removing any remaining contaminants from the solution. Currently still a prototype the system works by applying a large centrifugal force to clarify the solution from residual contaminants and remove part of the mineral fillers used in the original formulation of the PVC

compound being processed.

“This decanter is a necessity to sell our PVC in the membrane market. Without it, it would be impossible because the quality of the primary filter is not enough and we have a lot of contamination and if you use it you will have a weak point. The decanter doesn’t increase production, it increases quality.

It’s the best filter for our process,” he says.

The contamination removed by both the primary filter, which contains a lot of rubber and high calorific material, as well as that from the Centrigual Decanter that can contain material with a high content of heavy metals, are sent for incineration.

While VinyLoop was originally developed to treat cable scraps, and that still represents the bulk of its feedstock, tarpaulins and fibre containing waste are increasingly important. In 2013, the company concentrated its efforts on improving the efficiency of the treatment of scraps containing fibres, and achieved a significant increase in tarpaulin recycling (802 tonnes, +55% compared to 2012).

These wastes are processed in the Texyloop dissolver, where fibres are separated from the PVC. After being cleaned and stripped they are discharged and marketed for industrial purposes. “It’s a very unique material inside of this waste. It’s clean – it’s not a waste,” says Tarantino.

Marketing The R-PVC produced by the facility is marketed as a ‘smart solution’ for PVC product manufacturers that want to comply with more sustainable production, resource efficiency and public procurement.

According to VinyLoop it can be processed by extrusion, calendaring and injection moulding for various applications The material is already being used in the production of garden and air hoses and geo-membranes, as well as roofing and flooring products, shoe soles, coated textiles and furniture.

For example, Italian firm FLAG is using the recycled material to make flexible PVC membranes for use in tunnels, buried galleries and other structures, as well as underground car parks.

To boost the environmental credentials of its R-PVC product, the company con-

ducted a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

The methodology used for the VinyLoop Eco-Footprint Study has been critically reviewed by the German independent testing organisation, DEKRA Industrial, which confirmed its compliance with the ISO standards 14040-44 for Life Cycle Assessment.

According to the LCA, membranes made using recycled PVC material can save an average of 40% greenhouse gas emissions, 46% water consumption and 24% energy consumption – based on a product using 75% R-PVC. Garden hoses which have an inner layer made with VinyLoop’s recycled material are claimed to save 25% of greenhouse gases emissions, 30% of water consumption and 40% of energy consumption.

The company uses the results of the study to provide its customers with a visual label which summarises the environmental benefits, and therefore the environmental footprint of their final products, to support effective communication towards final consumers Adding Up The Numbers While the Ferrera plant has enabled VinyLoop to develop, and ultimately prove, the technical feasibility of the process, it is not sited in a commercially suitable location.

“This is the worst place for this kind of plant,” explains Tarantino. “It was

selected not because there is any synergy, it was selected for political reasons…

There was no steam, no electricity, no water, no nitrogen – no utilities.”

However, the company says that the technology would be ideally suited to being located at an ‘eco park’ type development where it could leverage synergies with heat and power suppliers, as well with potential waste PVC feedstock suppliers.

Conclusions After over a decade of operation and development, it would seem that VinyLoop has succeeded in creating a method for recovering high quality R-PVC from difficult to recycle materials that would otherwise have gone to landfill or incineration.

The ability to use the resulting product as a direct substitute for virgin materials also widens its appeal for applications where ‘green credentials’ are important, but where there is no room to sacrifice performance.

However, in order to fulfil the potential of the technology it has developed the company needs to move beyond its home town of Ferrara. With the PVC industry’s determination to recycle 100,000 tonnes per year of difficult to recycle material using innovative technologies, it’s hard to imagine that the process developed at the Ferrara plant will not spread its wings to more suitable, and profitable climes.

May -

- 55

TECHNOLOGY

THE GASBOX: MAKING THE MOST OF POOR QUALITY LFG

T

here’s nothing new about recovering energy from landfill gas - it’s been going on for years. Traditionally it simply involves some gas extraction wells and the use of a conventional reciprocating gas engine attached to a generator. And that works well. Or at least it does while the landfill is producing high methane content gas.

However, across Europe, and indeed the world, there are many older sites such the Yggeset landfill near Olso in Norway, where those days have long since passed.

On a recent visit to the site, now home to a household waste recycling centre, the facility’s manager, Thorleif Eriksen, explained that at 32 years old the site produces low-grade methane that is 56-

- May

unsuited to a conventional gas engine.

Under the Landfill Directive of 1999, in the EU, where possible, energy must be recovered from landfill gas. However, at historical sites such as Yggeset where the gas is not suited to energy production, it must be flared to prevent it entering the atmosphere – and that’s where Swedish firm Cleanergy, and its recently commercialised Stirling engine comes in.

The company was founded in 2008 when it acquired the rights of the V 161 Stirling engine from Solo Kleinmotoren, a German manufacturer of engine driven tools such as chainsaws. Requiring only a heat source to operate, the Sterling engine technology opens up new possibilities for recovering energy from poor quality gases.

Following six years of development work, including the installation of units rated at 9 kW each at the Yggeset site, Cleanergy says that it is now ready to roll out the GasBox commercially, and is to begin production at a former Volvo engine plant in Sweden.

Old Technology Originally patented nearly 200 years ago in 18916 by a Scottish Reverend, Dr Robert Stirling, the engine which takes its inventor’s name operates through the rapid heating and cooling of a gas, known as a working fluid. This has the effect of forcing the working fluid to expand and contract, an action which is used to drive two pistons and ultimately

twice as smooth – you make it a hundred times smoother,” says Vestin. “And of course, that reduces warewear.

“The piston ring is made of a silicon based material, but that’s just to keep the distance,” he continues. “What’s keeping it tight is the piston rod, which is a graphite based alloy, not metal. We try and explore different shapes and different coatings on the piston shaft where it’s moving.

“This is why it’s the right time for Stirling – because we have so much more knowledge of materials,” he asserts.

Maintenance

a crankshaft. Similar ‘hot air’ engines had been seen before, but Stirling equipped his with a unique regenerative heat exchanger – greatly increasing efficiency.

Stirling had hoped that the technology would compete with steam as a prime mover for industry. It averted the then significant risk of boiler explosions, a common and dangerous occurrence with the steam technology of the day, while offering increased efficiency. However, it was compromised by a need to operate at very high temperatures, an attribute which exposed the limitations of early nineteenth century material technology and led to failures.

The second half of that century saw something of a revival for the Stirling engine in applications such as domestic water pumping. But by the early twentieth century that role would be taken by the electric motor. Since then various companies have flirted with the technology, including Philips which had planned to use it to power a radio.

Now, almost two centuries after Stirling’s original patent, the technology could be on the verge of a major comeback.

21st Century Stirling Speaking with WMW at the Yggeset site, Alexander Vestin, Cleanergy’s chief commercial officer explains that the advent of advanced new materials and manufacturing capabilities means that many of the technology’s shortcomings

have been addressed.

The GasBoxes installed at the Yggeset site use helium as a working gas. However, the company also manufactures an otherwise identical unit for concentrated solar applications that uses hydrogen.

Vestin explains that that is actually the best gas for heat transfer and results in a 2kW increase in maximum output to 11 kW. But in the confines of a container the risk of explosion rules it out for such applications.

“The helium is heated to about 800°C and then cooled down again to around 80°C and it’s done 25 times per second.

One way of doing that is by having a heat regenerator inside. It looks something like a hockey puck and stores several hundred degrees of heat so that the gas does not have to be heated all the way back up,” explains Vestin.

The combustion chamber used to burn the low methane content landfill gas uses a flameless oxidation process with a high recirculation of gases that keeps them in the chamber for an extended period.

Incoming fuel is mixed with old fuel and preheated air. According to Vestin, this leads to low combustion temperatures and lower NOx emissions than with an internal combustion engine or a flare.

But it’s not just in its use of fuels and working gases that Cleanergy has been making strides. The company is also exploring nano technologies.

“What we see when we look at the new nano technology coating with a microscope is not that you make the surface

The engines in the GasBox have two cylinders in a V formation. The space above the cylinders is heated and cooled so that the working gas expands and contracts, thus moving the pistons. Vestin explains that after several thousand hours of constant operation the seals and surfaces which keep a tight fit between the high pressure dry area and the low pressure lubricated area start to wear ware and need to be changed.

“You’ll see that the pressure on top is reduced and as a consequence the energy output is reduced - so we know it’s time to do something about it,” he says. “But the cylinders and pistons can be reused because compared to a car engine the piston never touches the surface of the cylinder wall – there’s no metal to metal contact. The o rings are Teflon based.”

When the engines are serviced the company simply brings a kit of replacement parts to the site and swaps them for the worn components, which are taken back to Cleanergy’s facility and refurbished with new seals. But increasing the operating time between these service intervals is something the company’s been working on.

“We’ve put a lot of resources into improving the service intervals,” Vestin says. “We have many projects, both internally and with universities where we’re trying different surfaces and seals and lubrication. We’re seeing already that we have increased it in our factory to a lot more than 4000 hours. We’ve run engines in Russia already with intervals of 6000 hours – and that’s with the old seals. We have new ones that are working much better now.

He adds that one of the benefits of the May -

- 57

TECHNOLOGY

system is that over the expected 20 or 25 year life of the engines, with each service they will be updated with the latest all-important seals, surfaces and software. For the engines at the Yggeset site, that means that within a year it is expected that service intervals will have been increased to 8000 hours – allowing an annual maintenance routine.

Yggeset Installation The Yggeset site was one of the first installations for Cleanergy outside of Sweden. Eriksen explains that the 22 gas wells were drilled back in 2011 after surveys of the site revealed that it should have enough gas to run the facility for around 25 years.

On the day of my visit the engines are operating on gas with a 26% methane content, but are able to continue to operate down to around 16%.

The fluctuations in gas volume, as well as methane and oxygen content, are monitored by Eriksen. “When you use the gas for an engine you have to get to certain numbers to get the engine running. The

methane can go up or down 4 or 5% in 24 hours. When it rains it pressures the gas out and the flow goes up.” he explains.

“We have 22 valves and I can adjust each one up and down,” he continues. “I need to get to around 35 m3 to the engines and around 120 kW and the engine runs 100%. So that’s the balance we try to keep. The gas goes up and down. For example last week we had rain and we got about 100 m3 of gas in 12 hours or so.”

According to Eriksen, in the early days this monitoring took quite a long time.

However, Cleanergy has developed software to automate the process and monitors the parameters from all its installations remotely at its headquarters.

Vestin adds that back then the company hadn’t fully developed its control system, and has learned a lot from the Yggeset project.

“We were lucky because everything worked quite well even though it wasn’t our software and control mechanism,” he says. “We just delivered the engines.

Today we have developed a control system and software that will do a lot of the work. We can do that because we know the engines and we’re learning the

landfill.”

“Every day we’re getting data from every installation that we have so we can service them better and update the engines and the software,” says Vestin.

“We see the gas flow and how much they produce. It’s important for us because we can see if something’s not working.”

Conclusions The installation at Yggeset has clearly been a success and demonstrates the viability of using Sterling engines to recover energy from low grade landfill gas. In addition to generating electricity, heat from the plant is used to melt snow on the ground at the recycling centre through some 4000m of underground piping.

But the company’s success hasn’t been restricted to its home markets in Scandinavia. It also has working installations in Inner Mongolia, Dubai and the UK. Backed by wealthy investors including the Wallenberg family of industrialists and the Nobel Foundation, it would seem that after almost 200 years, Stirling engine’s heyday could be just around the corner.

FARMING

Worm Farming

A

worm farm may consist of either stackable crates or bins made of plastic, wood, or any other lightweight, waterproof material. Worms take food leftovers and turn them into a rich soil-like substance called castings or vermicast, as well as liquid vermicast. Worm castings are great for feeding house plants, adding to seedling mixes, and potting soils or top-dressing around plants.

Worm farming suits if you: • don’t have any garden materials to get rid of, • don’t have access to any bare earth, and • Have a small household or you don’t produce a lot of food scraps.

The benefits are: • you can collect the liquid and solid fertilizers from your worm farm, • you can keep your worm farm in a courtyard, on a balcony or even inside, and • You don’t need to add garden materials.

Common Worm Farming Problems and Solutions

60-

- May

Worm farms aren’t just home to worms.

You will see lots of other tiny creatures that are all part of the system. Spring tails, earwigs, mites, and microorganisms (especially bacteria) are some examples.

The creatures you don’t want in there are ants, rats and mice, cockroaches, and maggots.

• f you have ants, your worm farm is probably too dry. Gently pour water over it.

• To prevent ants and cockroaches getting in, put the legs in jars of water.

• By mixing the food in the worm farm and lifting the trays up and down to disturb it regularly you can also reduce cockroaches.

• A brick or heavy object on the lid should prevent rats and mice getting in. If you do have a problem, stop feeding the worms for a week and just put damp newspaper in.

• Maggots probably mean some meat or dairy went into the worm farm.

Place a piece of bread soaked in milk in the worm farm overnight and the maggots will be attracted to it and you can pull them out attached to it. If that doesn’t get them all you may need to clean it out and start again.

Fruit flies These tiny little flies that are common near fruit in summer are actually vinegar flies and are not particularly harmful but are annoying. It is hard to stop them in summer especially if they are already in your house.

There are a few things to try: • •

• • • •

•

Keep your fruit in the fridge.

Keep all surfaces in the kitchen clean, especially your kitchen bin where you put your food scraps.

Also, keep the outside of your worm farm clean.

Make sure you have plenty of newspaper and a hessian sack covering the food in the worm farm.

Dig the food scraps into the worm farm so they are not on the surface and the worms will eat them faster.

Smells If your worm farm smells bad it is not functioning well and you could have maggots or the worms may not be getting through the food. It could also be that it is too wet or too acidic.

Check that there are still lots of worms living. If there are not you may need to add more worms.

• •

•

Stop feeding them for a week or so to give them a chance to eat the food.

If the worm farm appears soggy, check that the bottom layer is not overfilling, give them less food, and add some dry newspaper on the top or shredded as food.

Sprinkle some Dolomite or Lime to help with the pH balance - you can get these from a nursery or garden centre.

Worms won’t multiply •

• • •

Be patient, they breed every six weeks so give them time to build up the population, then start feeding them more gradually.

If food has gone mouldy they won’t eat it. Pull it out and throw it away.

Try adding more worms.

If you have more than two people’s food scraps and it’s been more than three months you probably need a second worm farm or a compost bin as well.

Easy Steps to Worm Farming Choose your site Worm farms can be kept inside or outside. The best place is somewhere with convenient access outside, but under cover to avoid getting too wet or too much sun. Avoid direct sun in summer the worms will die if they get too hot. If you don’t have shelter you can still keep a worm farm, you will just need to be mindful it doesn’t fill up with water or get too hot.

Did you know?

If you go away your worms will be fine without food for a month or longer if you leave them with plenty of damp newspaper. Make sure they are somewhere shady or even in the bathroom if you are away in summer and remember to leave the worm farm tap open so it can drain if you’re leaving them outside.

2. Choose your ingredients What can I put in my worm farm?

Worms like to eat nitrogen-rich food scraps, mainly fruit and vegetables.

Feed your worms:

• Vegetable scraps • Fruit scraps • Egg shells • Tea bags and coffee grounds • Small amounts of carbohydrates • Small amounts of cardboard, hair, and vacuum cleaner dust.

Worms get through food faster if it is in small pieces.

The worm population is small to start with so only give them a few handfuls of food every few days. Once they’ve bred, after a few months, you can give them a lot more.

What should I keep out of my worm farm?

• • • • • • • •

Meat and bones Poultry and fish Fatty food waste Whole eggs Dairy products Citrus fruit Onion and garlic Chilli

Did you know?

Worm farm worms eat their body weight in food each day - although they are not actually eating the food but the bacteria on the surface of the food.

Setting up your worm farm Worm farms usually consist of two three layers. Liquid collects in the bottom layer, the middle layer is for bedding and the worms start here. The top layer is added later and the worms are fed here.

The tray with holes in it sits on top of the bottom layer. Line it with newspaper or cardboard.

Your worm farm comes with a coconut husk brisk. Soak it in a bucket of water for 30 minutes before you set up. When ready, pour the soaked husk over the cardboard in the middle layer and let it settle.

Add your worms to the middle layer, cover them with damp newspaper and a hessian sack. To feed them later, peel back the newspaper and hessian sack, place the food down, and replace the covers.

The extra layer is not needed until the middle layer fills up. Put it aside or take it on and off each time you feed the

Worms in the middle layer.: Worms move between the layers through the holes but they can jump. Place a container in the bottom layer that touches the next layer so the worms can climb back up it. Make sure the middle layer touches the top layer before you place the food there.

Covering the worms with damp newspaper and a Hessian sack keeps them moist and helps prevent small flies. You can use old T-shirt or anything made from natural fibres.

Did you know?

A good way to ensure they start breeding quickly is to make sure there is plenty of space for them to live in. You can do this by creating more bedding by adding aged compost or more coconut husk.

4. Using the worm produce Worm farms provide you with valuable solid and liquid fertilizer which you can harvest as you need.

Worm liquid Turn the tap on to collect the worm wee.

Use one part liquid worm wee to seven parts water, or dilute it until it looks like weak tea. Diluted liquid can be poured around the roots of your plants or sprayed on to the leaves of plants to act as a pest repellent.

Worm castings Swap the middle and top layers and leave the lid and covers off for 20 minutes in the sun. The worms will burrow down to avoid the light. To avoid taking too many worms, slowly scrape off the castings (worm poo) allowing the worms to burrow deeper. Mix castings with equal amount of soil and use it as a potting mix or dig it in around plants. Always cover this with mulch. If your worm farm is not under shelter it’s a good idea to leave the tap open so the bottom try doesn’t get too full, causing the liquid to rise up and drown the worms. You can store worm liquid in bottles (remember to label it). When you use it, aerate it by shaking the bottle and mixing it with water. Worm castings need to be used once harvested or they will dry out.

May -

- 61

MEDIA PACK

Recycling Matters is a bi-monthly A4 size, plus 80 page high quality, and informative magazine focussing on recycling technology, initiatives and recycling projects in South Africa. The magazine covers various topics from individuals, organisations and industries focussing on their unique recycling initiatives. The magazine covers sectors such as: news, plastics, paper, ferrous and nonferrous metals, technology, glass, electronics, governance and waste management. Recycling Matters shall inform, educate, connect stakeholders, and showcase the best of recycling innovations on the market.

Recycling Matters provides a unique platform for various companies and organisations involved in the recycling process to show case the very best of their activities, trends and products. The magazine shall provide an affordable and efďŹ cient means of communicating various recycling solutions. The magazine is therefore a platform of interaction between government, corporations, NPOs, and the public with a view to enhance and reinforce responsible recycling in South Africa.

Contact us:

RECYCLING MATTERS P O Box 74153, Turffontein, 2140 1 Crystal Place, Stafford Johannesburg, South Africa Telephone +27(0)11 039 2714 Email: info@recyclingmatters.co.za

ion t a l u Circ ies p o 0 c thly 5 9 9 on m Bi â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The following rates apply for advertising in the Recycling Matters Magazine

Full Page Double Page Spread Front Inside Cover Back Cover

Read by

R24000 R43200 R26000 R29000

Back Inside Cover Half Page Vertical Half Page Horizontal Quarter Page

R26000 R14500 R14500 R8600

Our Partners include

All major corporations Government and NPOs Sustainable Development Professionals

All recycling companies Mining Corporations Energy Corporations All manufacturing companies All sustainability ofďŹ cials All Media Houses Government Departments Libraries, colleges and universities

Print Copy Dates

30th March 2015 30th May 2015 30th July 2015 30th September 2015 30th November 2015 30th January 2016

RANGER