Plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility for NZ South Island

A world-class commercial plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility, serving communities across the whole of the South Island, has been officially opened by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, New Zealand's Minister for the Environment.

The plant was commissioned in August and is now processing 600 kg of milk bottles per hour or 100,000 bottles per day.

In 2007, four Canterbury businessmen, managing plastic manufacturing companies, decided to stop relying on others to deal with plastic products after use and to do it themselves. Two years later, and with the assistance of a grant from the Sustainable Initiative Funds Trust to assess feasibility and commercial viability and to contribute to capital costs, the wash plant is producing a high-quality plastic polymer to specification, which can replace virgin material at Comspec’s manufacturing plant. The process is chemical free and all water is recycled in a closed loop system.

Company Director Tom Thomson said: “Recycling milk bottles collected from kerbsides from Nelson to Invercargill makes good sense for a whole number of reasons. Whilst these are some of the most commonly collected plastic materials, up to now they have been exported to Asia to be recycled. I have long been concerned about the practice of sending plastics offshore rather than finding a local solution to local consumption. At current business levels we will process 2.5 million bottles a year.”

“The more we recycle locally, the more we reduce our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Using recycled HPPE bottles replaces the need to use virgin plastic and saves an average of one tonne of C0₂ for every tonne of plastic recycled.

“And from an economic perspective, this wash plant provides South Island councils and recyclers with a competitive onshore market for their materials. In the past, councils have had to manage extreme fluctuations in international resin prices but the bottom line is that if we take more control of our own recycling requirements in New Zealand, we will be less vulnerable to the commodity roller-coaster ride.”

The project is an example of the types of product stewardship initiatives being developed in response to the Waste Minimisation Act with partnerships between the plastics industry, recyclers and councils.

Comspec buys bales of bottles at internationally competitive prices and these are shredded, washed, granulated, rinsed and dried to produce a cost-effective recycled resin suitable for many applications including drainage pipes, plastic sheeting, wheelie bins and industrial packaging.

Managing Director Robert Fowler said that the company is looking at opportunities to extend the facility to process other types of plastic resins in New Zealand, rather than overseas: “All plastics are a valuable resource that should be mined from the waste stream to create recycled resins to make new commercial products. Creating higher value recycling markets in New Zealand will increase the economic viability of recovering plastics.”