We’re very sorry that we had to skip one week, but today it’s AcoZunday again. Today we want to talk about products made from plastic waste. While our business concept is built around chemical recycling and focuses on pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste, we are constantly looking for inspiration and other ideas how to tackle plastic pollution.
Before diving into the two interesting ideas we want to explain the choice of our title picture for today’s post. BCG, already back in 2019, published a detailed report1 about the global Circular Economy where the relevance of both mechanical and chemical recycling were explained and promoted. One of the many outcomes was the enhanced Zero-Waste-Pyramid graphic which lays out a clear structure for the treatment and handling of plastic waste.
At AcoZystem we are fully committed to this hierarchy of plastic waste treatment methods and want to promote the use of chemical recycling in regions where the only existing alternative is landfill or incineration. So ultimately chemical recycling should support mechanical recycling, only combining both approaches can help us close the circularity gap completely.
The first example of great leadership reducing plastic waste is coming from Kenya. GJENGE MAKERS2 is a social enterprise founded by Nzambi Matee. They are producing tons of building construction material from collected plastic waste and sand3.
Our second example is coming from the Americas and has been able to grow internationally over the past years. The Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC)4 was founded in Costa Rica more than 10 years ago by Donald Thompson. Their RESIN8TM material enables CRDC to take up to 10% of their concrete mix from plastic waste without losing any performance. It’s fire resistant, insulating, strong and light while looking the same as usual concrete5.
Bringing plastic recycling to the building and construction industry is a major step to re- or upcycle plastic waste. While there are a great number of companies doing a great job turning plastic waste into consumable products, innovations and major breakthroughs in non-consumer products are still rather rare in comparison.
But those innovations are sorely needed as they can help us to capture massive amounts of plastic waste and store it for years or even decades.
1https://www.bcg.com/de-at/publications/2019/plastic-waste-circular-solution 2https://gjenge.co.ke/ 3https://interestingengineering.com/kenyan-entrepreneur-transforms-plastic-waste-into-bricks 4https://crdc.global/ 5https://resource.co/article/costa-rican-company-turning-plastic-waste-building-blocks
AcoZystem 
Plastic waste management is well described here. Thank you 😊
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