Here at Kompakt, we understand that the world of recycling doesn’t revolve around what happens only in the UK.
There is a vast network of nations who are keen to recycle, are constantly improving recycling machinery, infrastructure and laws and are keen to develop the activity for business and environmental reasons. In this blog, we are going to look at Southeast Asia in particular, and how their improvements are affecting global recycling prices.
Huge Exporters of Solid Waste
Statistical studies show that nations in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region are huge producers of solid wastes. Not quite as much as China, or some European countries, but Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia are major contributors of global solid waste.
Solid Waste Manipulation
The good thing about this is that all of the ASEAN members are practising different varieties of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management, such as recycling and incineration. Myanmar and the Philippines are both practising rubbish collections for medium and large cities, with a mixture of door-to-door and mass collections.
Collection and Segregation
The ASEAN members are not only practising waste collection, they also practising the segregation of waste streams and many recycling methods. Segregation may be done during the collection of rubbish, by the segregation companies, by the local communities who live and work by the landfills, or by people at other stages of the waste management cycle. The third option (segregation by residencies around the landfill) is risky, and dangerous to people’s health because they can develop skin infections and respiratory disorders. Also, the mountains of rubbish are prone to sliding, and often catch fire due to bio-gas or methane build-up. A research team in China found that those who worked on a landfill, compared to those living in the next town, were less fertile, more prone to cancer and their children were more likely to die young.
Segregation is the first step of recycling. The waste is categorized after segregation as: ferrous and non-ferrous metals, construction debris, scrap tires, paper or cardboard, plastics, textiles (including cloth and leather), glass, wood or timber, animal bones or feathers, cinders or ashes, waste oil and grease. The largest percentage of all the solid wastes is plastic, which itself is further segregated into seven categories.
Not all types of waste are possible to put through a recycling process, which is why there are only a few ways of disposing of non-recyclable waste materials, such as: composting, incineration (commonly practiced by Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand), Landfilling or open dumping.
The practices of the Southeast Asian Nations can have a positive effect on global recycling prices, and here’s why…
Asia’s Tiger Economy Set An Example
Being named as “Asia’s Tiger Economy”, Taiwan is a large contributor to solid wastes – especially plastic waste. For example, Taiwan is one of the biggest manufacturers of umbrellas, which results in a lot of plastic waste during production. Also, they are the home of large electronics companies such as Asus, Acer and HTC. Taiwan has the fastest industrialization processes in the Asia-Pacific region, but fast and revolutionary growth has unintended side effects. The fast growth of Taiwan’s economy made Taiwan too large to fit on such a small island – literally!
Innovation Helps
Due to a massive production of solid waste, a considerable portion of Taiwan’s land has to be dedicated to landfills and waste depots. This is not a good thing. First, the country is so small that it can’t afford to allocate much land for landfills, and second, landfills are dangerous for residents.
These reasons are why Taiwan allocated more funds and efforts to improving their recycling systems. In a simple segregation, you could consider “tetra-pack” to be paper (although it is actually composed of paper, glue and aluminium foil), but with the technology they have developed in Taiwan, they are able to separate the aluminium from the paper. The aluminium can then be recycled into other products, while the paper can be compressed into a board that can be used as construction material. This is great for recycling prices, as new and unexpected recyclables are entering the market, thanks to technology improvements.
Costly Means = High Returns
Taiwan allocates about £4.5bn each year on subsidies to the recycling companies and garbage collecting systems. Recyclers only earn about £1.5bn in revenue. They have specialized segregations that can categorize solid waste into 33 different types. They have also developed technology to extract gold from waste electronics materials. All electronic devices, especially computers, have small amounts of gold in their components. This technology can literally turn waste into gold! Rubbish has become treasure for the “New Taiwan.”
Taiwan has set a very good example for the Asian recycling network and also for global recycling prices. By improving their processes and subsidising the industry during the formative stages, in which they get everyone involved and contributing, they will eventually be able to phase out their financial overhaul and one day make a profit. As a bonus, there will be more cheap material available for production, as there is going to be an abundance of recycled plastic granules, rather than virgin plastic granules. The plan is strong, and it sets out long term realistic goals, rather that short term, unsustainable success.