TOMRA’s Post

Transcript

Plastic pollution. It's something that's become a more talked about issue than ever before. Of all the plastic waste we produce, about 30% ends up in nature, while most of the rest gets buried in landfills or is incinerated, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and fueling global climate change. But does it have to be this way? I want to understand how we might turn the tide on plastic pollution. I'm Dicken, a Brit with a silly name and a passion for the environment. I recently moved to Norway and, well, it doesn't seem to have the same litter issues as other places I've been. Bottles, cans and other packaging played just as much of A role here as anywhere else. So what's happening in Norway that's so different? I work at Tomra, a Norwegian technology company that spent over 50 years working to enable a world without waste. So we're better to find some answers about what makes Norway tick when it comes to trash, please. Has one of the best performing the POSIT return systems in the world with more than 90% of all the used beverage containers being returned for recycling. And the way it works is that when you as a consumer go into a store like this to buy a bottle or a can, you pay a deposit and when you empty the bottle, you take it back into the store and enter verse vending machine. But this one and the machine makes sure that the both mistaken care. Also it can be recycled and you you get a little financial reward because you brought your bottle. So it's like buying the drink but borrowing the container. Exactly. And in that way we keep the bottles and cans out of the nature and at the same time take care of the material so that we can recycle it again and again and again. Win win. Now this all sounds pretty cool and the numbers are obviously impressive, but what actually happens next? Well, we're about to find out. I've come to where all the bottles and cans that are returned for recycling end up. Hello, welcome to Infinitum to go inside. Yes, so the container arrives in plastic bag from the shop from the vending machine. We separate the cap and the label material from the PT bottle. Clear and library bottle can become new clear PET bottle and the color bottle becomes strapping or other valuable material. After this sorting, we bailed the material and prepare it so we can deliver it. Into the Ola to their recycling plant, they will shop the bottles into flake, wash the flake to get rid of glue and label and then they will run the washed flake into their extruder to make granulate and that's the final product from the Ola. So that will be shipped to the preform producer that make the pre informed that you make the bottle from. Oh do we have separated accounts from the peaty bottle? We bailed the can material, ship it to the recycler. They make can stock material, go into the can producer, they sell the can to the beverage producer, they fill it up with their product, the consumer enjoy the beverage and then they can are back into the reverse vending machine for a new trip. Very nice and super efficient. We call it clean loop recycling. The idea is that you keep volleyball materials in the continuous recycling loop. So in Norway, 9 out of 10 bottles and cans are returned for recycling. This provides enough material to create new bottles and new cans. There are some losses in the recycling process and some version material has to be added to, but it's possible to turn the material from 100 bottles into more than 200. OK, hold on, let me show you. Imagine we start with 100 bottles and taking into account a Norwegian case with a 90% return rate, that means that you have about 90 bottles that are returned for recycling. In the recycling process, there's usually some loss. That means from 92 bottles you can get about 85 bottles going back to market to be consumed. Second loop starts, they go into recycling. Factoring the same return rate and loss in recycling process, you get about 77 bottles from that same material. And as you can see. Just in two rounds, you have more than doubled the amount of bottles that are being made from that material, and it keeps going round and around and around in this continuous loop. Plus you're using materials that are already available so you don't have to go and dig up new ones. Right? Exactly. And it's possible to reduce the emissions associated with these containers by up to 80% in comparison with containers made from virgin materials. O Recycling bottles and cans isn't just about keeping trash out of nature, it's driving emissions down too. I'm not much of A soda drinker, but when I find myself grabbing a bottle of water, that's good to know. Like anything Norway system isn't perfect and more than 90% return rate is pretty incredible, but it still means 10% of all drinks containers end up in the wrong place. And whenever that means in streets, forests, rivers or on beaches, more often than not, litter makes its way to the sea. The book. But it seems to me that as long as we're putting these kinds of containers into circulation, we ought to be doing our best to keep their negative impact as low as possible. So what does all this mean for the plastic pollution problem? Well, it means we already have some of the tools and systems that we need to take on this environmental challenge. We've seen how much of a difference they can make and how they can align policy, industry and society to get everyone moving in the same direction, keeping trash out of nature and valuable materials in a clean loop. So what's stopping us? Go to tomura.com to find out more about clean Loop recycling and how you can help in the fight against plastic waste.