Scientists have embarked on a $100,000 research trial at a country scrap dealer to recycle PVC in a way that makes economic sense.
The thermoplastic — or polyvinyl chloride — can be recycled, but it’s expensive, and it can create more carbon emissions than virgin plastic.
Bunbury scrap metal dealer Murray Connop and Edith Cowan University (ECU) researchers say they may have found a solution.
They are set to trial whether or not PVC granules can be turned into high-value water filtration membranes at desalination plants.
Need for change
Mr Connop said he became increasingly aware of an environmental need for waste to be saved from landfill during decades in the scrap-metal business.
He said the need to find a local solution became more pressing when China stopped taking bulk waste in 2017.
“We need to do something here in Australia,” Mr Connop said.
He has invested $50,000 of his own money, on top of a federal grant, for a $100,000 research trial with ECU.
Mr Connop wanted to find out what to do with leftover PVC after copper had been stripped from computer and electrical cabling.
“We’re producing copper granules, which is commercially viable for us,” he said.
“The by-product is the plastic granules.
“And that’s where we’re working at getting a solution.”
Mr Connop said the product needed to be more than a feel-good exercise.
“We want to use it in the wastewater filtration area in the first instance,” he said.
“We have to produce an economically viable product out of this.
“Otherwise, it’s only going to be a short-term, propped-up business model, and that’s not what we want.”
Need for recycling solutions
Industries have faced considerable challenges in finding viable solutions for recycling plastic, including the collapse of the REDcycle program.
ECU engineering lecturer Amir Razmjou says 70,000 tonnes of PVC end up in landfill in Australia each year.
“PVC is chemically stable and durable, so if it ends up in landfill, it stays for centuries or more,” he said.
Dr Razmjou said recycling methods were also energy intensive.
