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Christchurch is definitely becoming the hub of recycling for New Zealand especially for Plastics. Last month, the new $5 million Mastagard plant opened which will enable Canterbury to recycle more types of plastics and yesterday there were two new plant openings. The Agpac plant opened a new baler which will help to increase the amount of baleage plastic they can recycle and then an hour later Comspec in Hornby opened a new plastic milk bottle recycling plant.

The Comspec plant is a state-of-the-art plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility. They are able to process 100,000 plastic milk bottles per day. Comspec is another SIFT funded project as well – we gave an initial grant to assess the feasibility and commercial viability of the plant and then some more $ in the form of a loan to buy the plant needed.

There are three key positive aspects to the Comspec plant:

1. It means that the South Island’s plastic milk bottles will no longer be shipped offshore. They would normally go to Asia to be recycled but Comspec can now do it.

2. The process is also chemical free and the water used for washing is recycled in a closed loop system.

3. Turning the old plastic milk bottles into recycled plastic resin provides a ready feed stock of plastic resin for manufacturing within New Zealand. This means decreasing our dependancy on buying in plastic resin from overseas. This is a valuable resource.

It is estimated that they will process 2.5 million plastic milk bottles a year. They will be shredded, washed, granulated, rinsed and dried to make recycled plastic resin that can be turned into other plastic items such as drainage pipes, plastic sheeting, wheelie bins and industrial packaging.

Comspec have stated that this project will save an average of 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of plastic that is recycled. That’s great.

Even Fonterra is supportive of the new plant. Their Eco-Efficiency Manager, Spring Humphreys, was quoted in the press release as saying  “This wash plant is an excellent example of innovation in New Zealand’s plastics recycling industry which ticks all of the boxes for improving environment, social and economic performance.”

At SIFT we are really pleased to be apart of such positive impactful projects and can’t wait to see more of them come on line. This is a successful SIF T project that diverts our waste from going to landfill and from going off shore for someone else to deal with.

Old plastic milk bottles on the move

More old milk bottles on the move

The Comspec Plant

Another part of the Comspec plant

Chipped old plastic milk bottles

From milk to consume, to empty milk bottles, to recycled plastic resin granules to new plastic piping.