I am the founder of Gaia Initiatives, a startup in the Netherlands and I am promoting the collection of PET plastic ONLY, implying sorting and separate collection, as I want to collect clean, uncontaminated plastic to extend the life cycle of the PET plastic and support the introduction of recycled plastic into the new product.
I want to promote the circular consumption of such resource as I see in every disposed bottle, money and energy wasted, and I imagine a system whereby all the bottles disposed of are recycled and reproduced into a new bottle that can be reuse. With the new commitment to introducing gradually recycled plastic in new products, we could tackle plastic waste pollution.
But I am not able to kick my business off because the earning that the plastic waste would generate is too small, insufficient to cover any expenses, the collected plastic waste is trade by tonnes! and 1 tonne of plastic represent an average 55,000 bottles!!! a huge quantity that will earn at the most 400 Euro!!!
And when we hear the presentation of the plastic waste pollution they come back to the same conclusion: the collection is too costly and nobody wants to bear the costs. What an irony. On the other hand, a cafeteria can easily make 157,000 Euro a year for just selling bottle beverages, while paying close to nothing for the disposal of the waste.
Now, doing this type of project is developed countries is more complicated because there are more players involved. The
Now, I would like to hear what members of this community think of the plastic waste and the linear consumption that our society has, particularly with bottled beverages. And I also would like to hear what do you think could work to tackle plastic pollution and waste of resource
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Aleyda Santos
- Waste Management
- Thursday, 16 April 2020
