Sustainable Initiatives Fund provided a loan to Comspec to buy a machine that will wash and chip 2.5 million of the South Island’s plastic milk bottles every year.
The Comspec plant is a state-of-the-art plastic milk bottle washing and recycling facility. The plant is able to process 100,000 plastic milk bottles per day. Comspec is another SIFT-funded project. We gave an initial grant to assess the feasibility and commercial viability of the plant and then some more financial assistance in the form of a loan to buy the plant needed.
There are three key positive aspects to the Comspec plant:
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.- The process is also chemical free and the water used for washing is recycled in a closed-loop system.
- Turning 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 dependency on buying this valuable resource from overseas.
It is estimated that Comspec 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 has stated that this project will save an average of 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of plastic that is recycled, which is very good news for the environment.
Fonterra is among those supportive of the new plant. Fonterra’s Eco-Efficiency Manager, Spring Humphreys, was quoted in the press release of the opening of the plant in November 2009 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 a part of such positive 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 or offshore for someone else to deal with.
