Plastic recycling, a business model that offers a solution to the pollution of the oceans

Reduce Entropy #13: Precious Plastic, raising awareness about the use of plastic and motivating people in the best way, with the possibility to earn extra money.

Jan 23, 2023

This post is the second part of a small series on plastic that I'm creating, however, not reading this post will not affect your reading experience. For the first part, click here.

Plastic represents one of the biggest challenges we face in waste management. However, it is important to understand that the main cause of this problem is our mentality toward plastic.

Plastic was invented in 1870 and since then it has been the leading material in everything we use on a daily basis, mainly due to its versatility, malleability, and, of course, its low price.

But it has two major problems:

Its degradation time is between 500 - 1000 years.
There is a general lack of knowledge about how to deal with plastic.

Plastic at best (or the least "worst") ends up in landfills, at worst in the oceans, posing a major threat to marine life. It is estimated that if we continue on this path, by 2050 there will be less fish in the sea than plastic.

I have said this before, but it is always a surprising figure:

"Only about 8% of the world's plastic is recycled"

We use it for practically everything, but there is a misconception that when we throw it away, it is someone else's problem.

Clearly, it is still our problem and there is plenty of evidence of that.

We have so much plastic around us that we sometimes feel that there is nothing that can be done about it.

Fortunately for us, that is not the case.

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Plastic has great hidden potential that we can make the most of by recycling.

Did you know that you can build plastic houses from bottles and masks, and plastic beams that are similar to metal beams? Just to mention a couple of the many alternatives that exist to give plastic an extra life.

With plastic, there are practically no limits.

Even I, a person who has been recycling plastic for years, didn't know how much can be done using it as a raw material.

Last year my eyes were opened while surfing the internet, doing courses, and studying when I saw a course that caught my attention at Parley: Precious Plastic Academy.

What amazed me so much about this course?

In this course, you can learn EVERYTHING about plastics.

They explain everything from the basics, the types of plastics that exist, the risks that can exist in recycling, the main machines you need to set up a recycling workshop, and even teach you about financial management to make your own recycling business.

And all this for the modest price of...

TOTALLY FREEEE

Let's talk about Precious Plastic

This course is created by Precious Plastic, a worldwide initiative born in the Netherlands that constantly promotes plastic recycling through the use of technology.

It was founded in 2016 by Dave Hakkens, a Dutch industrial designer who was primarily looking to develop and implement machines and organizations for plastic recycling.

His goal has always been to empower people to create workshops in their homes dedicated to recycling and to raise awareness of the great power and capacity of plastic, the biggest pollutant of our seas and oceans.

Plastik Recycling – Projekt von Dave Hakkens — Dave Hakkens, creator of Precious Plastic

Thanks Dave, we kind of love you! 💚

Where can we find all this info?

Besides the fact that the complete guide to being a plastic recycling addict can be found on the Parley academy (keep an eye on it, they have interesting courses), everything you need to learn and get started in the world of plastic recycling can be found on the official Precious Plastic website.

Their site is completely Starter Friendly if you want to get into the world of plastic recycling.

As soon as you enter the site you can find beginners' guides to:

Starting a Collection Point
Create a recycling point in your community

Create a workshop for the production and maintenance of recycling machines.
Specialize in any type of product creation

But the best part of it all is that on the website you will find EVERYTHING you need to set up your own recycling shop and workshop.

Need to know what you need to set up a collection point? On the web you have it

Ideas for things you can make from plastic? On the web you have it

Blueprint of the machinery? On the web you have it

Do you want to know if there is a workshop near you that can make the machinery for you? On the web you have it

A shop where you can buy equipment and machine parts?

Guess what...

That's right, on the web you have it.

But what I've completely fallen in love with is...

This project is very serious and explains everything from the simplest things you need to know about plastics and how to make a business plan for your shop.