PLASTIC REBORN Jayant Jayakrishnan, July 20, 2011

Even if you have been vehemently saying no to plastic, unless you are a serious eco-warrior, you cannot live without the stuff. It s use! to package most of your toiletries. It s the har! shell aroun! your television, computer an! telephones. It s use! for water bottles an! milk cartons. It s in the refill of that pen in your pocket. It s everywhere. "ow, if you are haunte! by visions of these huge lan!fills where your plastic waste, along with several tonnes generate! by the rest of the population, is leaching its way into the earth you can sleep a little easier tonight. #ecause $uscat recycles. %& lot of plastic trash is generate! in $uscat but '0 per cent of it is being recycle!,( sai! ) $ Johnson, the operations manager of $uscat *ilver Enterprises, a company owne! by +aitham Ibrahim $ohame!. %If it wasn t it woul! be a big problem for the environment an! for the municipality as they have to han!le all that is !umpe!.( &ccor!ing to Johnson a staggering ,00 tonnes of plastic waste is recycle! every month. It begins with all the trash being carrie! away to the municipal waste !umping groun!s in the outskirts of the city. -here, municipality workers !o the horrific .ob of sifting through the waste an! separate plastic, glass, steel, aluminium an! paper /all !estine! for recycling0 from the bio!egra!able waste that goes into the lan!fill. -en!ers are then given to people who buy the trash an! sell it !own the chain to the recycling plants - for plastic there are about ten in $uscat. Johnson took us to one with a rather strange name an! !escriptor, $o!ern $uscat for 1lastic *oli!arity - $alefactor of 1lastic 2 3epairing 4orms, owne! by his frien!, *ai! &li *alim to show us the process. %-he waste plastic arrives here an! the workers sort it into !ifferent types of plastic,( sai! Johnson. -here is +51E an! 651E, the stuff use! to make soft bottles for cooking oils an! shampoos7 &#*, the har! shell of televisions, phones, etc.7 1E which is use! in plastic bottles an! shopping bags, the list goes on an! covers foo! takeaway containers, car bumpers an! almost every conceivable plastic.

%-hen it is segregate! by colour an! shre!!e!,( sai! Johnson as he pointe! out sacks fille! with cornflake si8e! chips of plastic. %-his is then washe! to remove impurities like foo!s an! oils before being fe! into the machine where it is melte! !own,( sai! Johnson. 4rom the machine a thick cor! of polymer paste emerge! an! was fe! into another tube from which it came out in 20 spaghetti-thick cor!s which ran through a water trough to cool an! then went through a chopper where it was re!uce! to shiny little pellets of warm plastic. %9an you imagine that this came from that rubbish:( sai! Johnson as he no!!e! towar!s the mountain of technicoloure! trash. *acks of the pristine recycle! green, grey, blue, yellow an! white pellets are sol! to companies that use plastic in their manufacturing processes. $ost of $uscat s recycle! plastic goes into in!ustries in ;man but some of it is e<porte!, mostly to the =&E. 3e-entering the manufacturing stream as 20->0 per cent of the raw material - it is not strong enough on its own an! nee!s to be mi<e! with virgin plastic - it helps manufacturers keep their costs !own. Johnson, an economics teacher by profession, was the pioneer of plastic recycling in $uscat setting up the first plant some ten years ago. -o!ay his firm specialises in recycling 651E, the sheets of transparent plastic use! in packaging to wrap furniture, etc. ?hen aske! whether he was motivate! to start this out of a love for the environment, he laughe! an! confesse!, %"o, not at all. I starte! it for the money an! only later on realise! that it makes a !ifference also.( +e then a!!e!, %?e cannot forget the people who go aroun! an! collect all the rubbish like the municipality workers. -hey are !oing a very goo! .ob for the environment without knowing it s important, but no one pats them on the back or gives them me!als.(

@ &pe< 1ress an! 1ublishing, 1.;. #o< 2A1A, 3uwi 112, $uscat, *ultanate of ;man -elB C'AD-2EF''>DD 4a<B C'AD-2EF'>>1A