Recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET)

September 1998: MORE GOOD NEWS! "We've locked the purity of nature in perfect packaging. Now, we'd like to introduce our new eco-friendly PET bottle with an attractive new label. Because we care. We care about quality, about you and about the future. You see, this new bottle is crushable and recyclable. So now it not only looks good and contains water that is good for you, it is also good for the environment. Perfect, you might say, in every way."

Excellent! So now we have all these PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles replacing PVC (polyvinyl chloride) ones. Some are sure to be recycled locally. And the rest exported to overseas markets for reprocessing.

Why, then, is the Dubai-based Seven Stars General Trading Co. Ltd. purchasing PET scrap i.e. post consumer-waste mineral water bottles from Europe and exporting it to China to be washed, crushed, chipped, and converted into polyester fibre and yarn? Why not from Dubai, what with the quantity of PET waste having increased?

" I would like to," says Tarun Agarwal, Managing Director, Seven Stars, "but how do I retrieve sufficient quantities of PET scrap? All types of plastics are mixed up for disposal. Besides, they are frequently in a filthy state. Contaminated with oil, food and other refuse. It would require a whole team of workers to pick up plastic waste from dumping areas and then, identify and sort them. In addition there is the cost of cleaning the bottles."

PET Fibre

For recycling, PET cannot be mixed with any other type of plastic. Agarwal describes the three 'main culprits' in a PET bottle-the cap, the neck ring and the label. The first two are made of HDPE (high-density polyethylene) or PP (polypropylene); and the label maybe either paper or plastic. All three need to be removed for the recycling process. In the experience of some others in the recycling business, it may take one labourer a whole day just to remove labels from a thousand bottles; and they are so light, that some 70,000 bottles would constitute one tonne of scrap! To fill up one container for shipment would require 10-12 tonnes.

Then again, colour counts. Reprocessors prefer colourless PET bottles, paying as much as £125 (Dh.750) per tonne for it. If there is even a tinge of colour, the price plummets to £25 (Dh.150) a tonne!

Still, there are great values to PET. For one, the ease with which it is recyclable; because it is made up of just one type of plastic and not a combination as PVC is. Another is its wide variety of uses. "PET is converted into an incredible diversity of goods," explains Agarwal as he displays samples of PET flakes, chips, fibre and yarn along with a catalogue of products made from these. "Polyester fibre stuffing for pillows, comforters, sleeping bags and soft toys; wadding for carpets; interlining in fabrics etc." The latest (and this is quite unbelievable!) is top quality garments made exclusively from used PET bottles!

How on earth can efficient recovery of PET be promoted in the Emirates? These "eco-friendly PET bottles" which are both "crushable and recyclable" and "the healthy alternative to the plastic PVC"?

An organised collection scheme needs to be set up. Agarwal suggests incentives to consumers for the return of PET bottles-a raffle scheme. Consumers get a raffle ticket for each bottle returned! "If an environmental group such as the EEG initiates the scheme in association with a private company marketing products bottled in PET, and is supported by the municipal authorities, it would work," says Agarwal. Who would buy the bottles so collected? "I would! Just start the collection and you will see how many will come forward to pick up the scrap," he enthuses.

Others call for steps to make it economically viable for companies to collect PET. Steps such as subsidising the establishment of recycling centres. Presently, the establishment costs are too high-warehouse rents, electricity, labour, water; and the price that plastic scrap commands these days is too low. A successful collection scheme would certainly help direct PET bottles to local recycling companies such as Eco Plastic Industries, that uses this and other plastics for the manufacture of Eco Wood. It will also facilitate their pick up and baling for export to overseas markets where these can be recycled. Better still, it may foster a PET recycling industry in the Emirates itself! That would make it "perfect, you might say, in every way."

Three different types of plastic are generally used to manufacture plastic bottles-PET, PE and PVC. To collect waste plastic bottles and get these ready for reprocessing, they have to be sorted, usually manually, cleaned and baled. It isn't that simple! Specifications identified by individual reprocessors must be met or else the bale would be rejected and the collector/exporter would incur financial loss. Here are examples of bale specifications: Baled material is required to be in a clean condition, free from contamination such as dirt and oil. Plastic caps should be removed. Typically, a single plastic type is specified-PET or PE or PVC. Accuracy levels of 95% are normally required to meet the accepted criteria. There are specific exclusions.   Bales should not include paper, metal or glass products; or other non-requested items such as film or sheet, yoghurt cartons, ice-cream tubs, margarine containers, lubrication oil bottles or horticultural bottles.   Any hazardous materials, including broken glass found in bailed materials will lead to the rejection of the bale.   Payment is made on the basis of bales meeting the defined specifications.   So now we understand why private collectors here are reluctant, under the existing conditions, to get into job of gathering plastic bottles.

REGIONAL NEWS Coastal Biodiversity of Qatar Ornithologist, Prakash Rao and Marine Biologist, Dr. K. Lakshmikantha Bhat surveyed, in April-October 1997, the coastal habitats of Qatar covering floristic and faunistic diversity as well as status of the environment. The survey was undertaken under the Convention on Biological Diversity programme of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Regional Organisation for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME). Both the shallower, intertidal and the deeper, subtidal habitats of the coast were covered. On a visit to Dubai in October 1998, Rao shares with Earthsense, some interesting findings. "The coast of Qatar has scattered intertidal habitats of ecological significance. Biodiversity in such places has survived because of natural protection and, most importantly, marginal human intervention. Controlled recreation-based and industrial development along the coast has helped," says Rao. One such habitat is the bay area of Al-Thakhira (on the east coast) which harbours natural mangroves (Avicennia marina species) and a large population of resident and migratory birds. Of the over 5600 birds (of 28 species and seven families) recorded during the study, 3500 were found in these mangroves. Another is the small bay of Al-Areesh (on the west coast) which has a good diversity of invertebrates especially molluscs (e.g. crabs, shells). Seabirds such as little terns and other coastal species like reef herons breed on an island offshore. Rao feels that Al-Thakhira and the tidal flats around Al-Areesh should be protected as national marine parks. On the other hand, the north and northwest coasts of Qatar have suffered from heavy oil pollution in the past. "The virtual absence of biodiversity here is dramatic. Tar balls and oil sheets are visible in rocky as well as sandy habitats," remarks Rao. Degradation in coastal areas is also caused by the accumulation of debris and dumped wastes such as plastics, bottles, cans, and tyres-probably the result of recreational activities. "Monitoring of oil spills and controlling dumping of rubbish in the waters would greatly help conservation efforts," surmises Rao. INTERNATIONAL NEWS A group of industrialists and entrepreneurs are utilising China's enormous quantities of plastic waste (120,000 tonnes a year) by converting it into diesel fuel and gasoline. The conversion processes had been experimented on in several countries including Japan, Germany and U.K. in the early 1970s, when oil prices had increased dramatically. In recent years these techniques have been further developed and refined in China. The outcome: Any old plastic products, including tyres, are first separated from the rest of the rubbish and also bought from recycling centres. These are taken to the conversion plant, crushed, cleaned, and fed into cracking reactors for heating in the presence of a catalyst. The waste plastics are thus transformed into crude oil that is a complex mixture from which gasoline and diesel are separated. The existing factories in Beijing being too small to deal with the vast amounts of waste plastic, a large plant capable of converting 60,000 tonnes of plastic annually is to be constructed. The plastic-to-diesel conversion process has been praised as a "Best Practice" by the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration and has been profiled as a project with commercial potential by the National Science Foundation of China.

WHAT ON EARTH CAN WE DO? Choose aluminium cans over steel. Aluminium cans are recycled in the UAE. (Steel is easy to identify, as it will stick to a magnet whereas aluminium will not.)

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