- May 30, 2022
- Posted by: medium
- Category: National
Industry presented data on World Recycling Day. Six out of ten households classified or separated their waste before the pandemic.
15% of plastic bottles are converted back into bottles after the recycling process, which has been increasing in Ecuador, but many more are transformed into plastic wood, sheets, roofs, cutlery, business cards and even National Team t-shirts.
Converting waste into products that have value again is what the industry considers to be “the great solution” to pollution problems. And good management goes hand in hand with citizens and public policies, indicates the president of the Ecuadorian Plastics Association (Aseplas), Jorge Mórtola.
This May 17—on World Recycling Day—this sector, which moves $2.1 billion (2% of GDP), analyzed that, although consumers are adopting a good habit, municipalities must do their job.
Due to the Law for the Rationalization, Reuse and Reduction of Single-Use Plastics—in force since 2020—and the investments of companies, plastic covers on average are already manufactured with 50% recyclable material; disposable products, with 10%; bottles have 15%.
"Although we always talk about the fact that, of everything that is produced, only 5% is recycled, that figure is misleading, because we are talking about a universe where more than 50% is durable material: tubes, windows, floors. We have to concentrate on that 50% that is for single use; and of that, in the case of PET, for example, the figures in Ecuador speak of that about 80% is reused, of which 15% is remade into bottles, but the rest has two main sources: the first, textiles. Many of the t-shirts, even from the National Team, have parts from PET bottles; polyester is a reusable waste product from PET. But the most important thing within our union: we have important industries where large volumes of reuse or processing of PET waste are exported, that is, our waste goes to the world with added value.
This process estimates that it has taken ten years of work, and assures that there will be "better use as long as resources are allocated to prevent waste from ending up in landfills. Let the municipalities do their job."
In homes, classifying and separating waste is a habit that is increasing, according to data attributed to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC). Aseplas refers to the latest publication of Environmental information in homes, November 2020. According to that report, 47.47% of households separated some waste in 2017, and in 2019 61.53% did so. It is estimated that in the post-pandemic, at least seven out of every ten households already do so.
Until 2019, the main waste classified or separated was plastic (46.04%), followed by organic waste (40.09%), paper/cardboard (37.70%), metal (20.20%), glass (20.12%) and Tetra Pak (11%).
On the public side, the union maintains, plastic waste needs to be valued to encourage the thousands of families who work in recycling to increase their portfolio of plastic materials to achieve equal or higher volumes than those already achieved today with PET (recovered bottles, for which there is an incentive of two cents on the dollar). While municipalities must enact ordinances that encourage classification of origin, that prevent the public waste collection service from mixing organic with inorganic and that encourage the formalization of grassroots recyclers.
For its part, the industry works on sustainability, on design and innovation to achieve plastics that are easier to recycle and on products that contain post-consumer plastic waste.
Also in equipment. And along those lines, the sector will resume the Iplas fair, which it is now organizing for September 2023, and where it is expected to attract participants from 25 countries. All types of machinery will be exhibited, the first American Recycling Forum will be held and it will also be an opportunity to attract investments, comments Xavier Gómez, director in charge of the event.