Unraveling the Material Recovery Facility

Welcome to Suits & Tides, the sustainability blog with more knowledge than microplastics in the ocean. This week, we dive deep into what happens to the plastic we recover, our amazing, very yellow, Material Recovery Facility and its significance in promoting sustainable plastic waste management.

Plastic waste has become a pressing global concern due to its detrimental environmental impact. With the global production of plastics reaching staggering levels, effective plastic waste management strategies, including recycling and recovery, are essential.?

As part of our commitment to tackling the issue, we keep updating you on how much plastic we have removed from the ocean and environment, but have you ever wondered what SCS do to our collected plastic waste?

YES! We capture the recyclable plastic waste in our yellow-Material Recovery Facility (MRF) with the purpose of, either directly in-house or to be sent through 3rd parties, getting it recycled! All thanks to our MRF.?

What is an MRF, and why is it essential for the circularity of plastic?

The waste management system is made up of five basic components: waste generation, storage, collection, processing & treatment, and final disposal. An MRF is a facility which enables the processing and treatment component. These stages are also the cornerstones of recycling and repurposing, and as such, the MRF acts as an enabler for the circular economy for plastic waste.

The MRF is a facility that sorts, separates, and stores plastic from collection activities to be processed further for recycling. But we are not only sending the raw material for 3rd party recycling, but we directly recycle in-house, depending on the machinery it is equipped with. Without such a facility, there would be no safe or available space to store and process the collected waste, and thus it would stay in its “waste form” and likely only end up in landfills. So, we can prepare as much plastic as possible to reuse, repurpose, or recycle. Ultimately, closing the system by keeping the plastic in the value chain as long as possible is critical for a circular economy.

The hard truth and how an MRF can help

Our mission of collecting 10,000,000 kg of plastic waste by 2025 and our commitment to ensure a positive impact on the environment and building an infrastructure around this means that we must deal with mismanaged plastic waste in the environment – from collection to a safe end-of-life destination.?

Collecting and then recycling the plastic that has incorrectly been thrown out in or onto beaches, rivers, and oceans is very challenging. Why? Firstly, the waste gets dispersed over large areas, making it difficult to find and reach, and it can stay there for a very long time, being slowly degraded by the sun, salt, and organics. Now take a moment, and imagine ketchup still in the sachet, food waste stuck in the packaging, organics attached in plastic bottles, paint sticking on labels, sand inside plastic cups and other contaminants. How do we recycle this plastic? This is why the MRF has emerged as a crucial component in our operation, offering a facility to address and remove these contaminants and then recover and recycle the plastic materials.?

The functioning and process of the Material Recovery Facility

After successfully establishing and operating our MRF in Bintan, we built another MRF in Batam this year to maximize the recovery of recyclable materials from our projects, kick off our journey and mission of in-house recycling, and directly contribute to the development of the circular economy.

Having MRFs near our project sites enables us to do the following:

1. Pre-treatments and storing – of both high- and low-value recyclables.Once the waste reaches the MRF, we wash, dry, and sort the plastic waste. Our trained crew manually segregates, treats, and stores the different plastic materials based on their types, grade, and color, and registers this in our online database.

?2. Processing and recycling. After the pre-treatment, the plastic waste is processed further for recycling. We transform plastic waste into raw materials for recycling or forming new products depending on the type (or value) and quality of plastic. In this way, the recovered plastics can be used to manufacture new products, reducing the demand for virgin materials. For instance, high-value plastic (e.g., PET from plastic bottles) can be bailed, shredded, extruded, and pelletized. Other examples, such as HDPE bottle caps, PP plastics, LDPE hard plastics, and so on, can be shredded and melted into plastic sheets that can be formed into furniture (e.g., tables, chairs, etc.).

Low-value plastic, such as multilayered plastic, plastic bags, foam packaging, and other composite materials, can be turned into construction and building items such as bricks, eco-paving, floor tiles, and roof tiles. Not only can repurposing these plastics replace the need for new resources and materials (e.g., sand), but it also reduces the amounts of waste otherwise sent to landfill because it cannot easily be turned into higher-value products.

What can or cannot be recycled depends on the outfitting of the MRF, i.e., what machinery it has been equipped with. Therefore, the outlay and operations of an MRF may also differ from site to site, depending on the type of waste that needs to be handled on-site and which products are desirable to create. For example, SCS focuses the choice of our end products on those desirable and valuable for the local communities, given the waste input we collect from those sites.

Benefits and Challenges of an MRF

By understanding the benefits and challenges, we can significantly improve the effectiveness and sustainability of MRFs. We unlock numerous benefits of MRFs in plastic waste management, such as increasing plastic recycling rates, reducing resource needs and emissions, and creating jobs and economic benefits, as outlined below.

Increase recycling rates. Processes and activities inside the MRFs significantly enhance recycling rates by efficiently separating plastics from the mixed waste stream and contaminants. Through the meticulous sorting process and proper strategy (e.g., the right equipment), MRFs ensure that a higher percentage of plastics are recycled rather than being disposed of in landfills or incineration.

Resources and emissions reduction. Mechanical/material recycling consumes less energy than virgin plastics if you look at the big picture of directly reducing oil usage and emissions of greenhouse gases associated with producing the virgin polymer.1 Moreover, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with waste disposal methods by diverting plastics from landfills or incineration.

Job creation and economic benefits. MRFs can generate employment opportunities within local communities, ranging from operational staff to technicians and engineers. Additionally, the recycling industry creates a market for recycled plastic products, stimulating economic growth, and fostering a circular economy.

On the other hand, MRFs also poses challenges as the world grapples with the mounting environmental and social challenges faced by plastic pollution such as:

Level of contamination and presence of non-recyclable plastic. Apart from the hard truth that recycling contaminated plastic is challenging, the presence of non-recyclable plastic poses a significant challenge for MRFs. Separating and sorting different types of plastics becomes challenging, requiring advanced technologies and skilled labor.

“One of the significant issues with recycling mismanaged plastic waste is that the more contaminated or degraded it is, the more effort you need to put into cleaning/purifying and to separate it so that the plastic is acceptable for recycling. As a result, it increases the cost of recycling and often makes it inefficient and unprofitable so that it never gets recycled.”?

– Indra, Project Development and Certification Expert of Seven Clean Seas

Technological readiness and financial viability. MRFs encounter various challenges, particularly in terms of technological readiness and financial viability. For instance, we need to provide proper equipment and machinery depending on the conditions of plastic waste (e.g., different materials and additives) and desired outcomes.

Financial viability is another critical challenge as establishing and operating MRFs involve substantial upfront costs, including infrastructure development, equipment installation, and maintenance.

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In the end, our battle against plastic waste finds a potent ally in a well-optimized Material Recovery Facility (MRF). These facilities serve as crucial components of plastic waste management systems by focusing on preparing and recycling plastic materials so that valuable resources are not wasted and plastic waste is diverted from landfills and other disposal methods. This significantly contributes to environmental preservation and resource conservation by closing the loop, reducing the demand for virgin plastics, and promoting the sustainable use of resources.

Watch our founder and co-founder, Tom and Ben, introducing our Bintan MRF MTV style here.

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