Taiwanese firm says recycling education is critical

According to Taiwan’s Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, recyclers in that nation earned $2.2 billion in revenue in 2014, up from $1 billion 10 years before. Among the past decade’s success stories is Da Fon Environmental Technology Co. Ltd., a Taipei, Taiwan-based company that says it is helping to breathe new life into discarded plastic, creating a booming new business that also is environmentally friendly.

Engaged in collecting, sorting, processing, shredding, manufacturing and product design, Da Fon has shaped itself as a “one-stop solution” providing what it calls high-quality post-consumer ABS, HIPS, polypropylene (PP), filled PP and HDPE products.

In the past 15 years Da Fon has established 35 recycling “stations” (collection centers) across Taiwan, a factory to manufacture reprocessed granules, a research and development department and a resource recycling center. The company says every step in the process is open to the public to visit or even participate. Da Fon says it “relies heavily” on the involvement of the public and that public awareness makes recycling possible.

Da Fon says it views its recycling stations as not just places for people or partner organizations to recycle materials, but also educational centers and show rooms for reusable flakes and granules and products made from secondary raw materials. “Collecting junk can be cool,” says C.H. Juan, an engineer in Da Fon’s Resources Circulation Department.

Recently Da Fon has been exporting its experience and plastic products to the rest of the world as well as meeting global certification standards. Da Fon’s reprocessed granules have been certified by the SGS Carbon Footprint Verified Certificate, the TUV Recycled Material Verified Certificate, the Plastic Industry Development Center (PIDC) Post-Consumer-Recycled (PCR) Plastics Verified Certificate and the EuCertPlas Certificate, which works in conjunction with Germany's Blue Angel program and allows the Blue Angel label to be applied to certain applications and products.

The company says it has built upon an infrastructure of recycling education that exists in Taiwan. Almost every elementary school in Taiwan has now implemented environmental education programs into their curricula, says Da Fon. A result is that “most Taiwanese youngsters are now able to tell their parents that five PET bottles can make a recycled bag; that three polystyrene (PS) lunch boxes can be the raw material for a ruler; or even that 1 kilogram of gold can be recycled from 80,000 used computers,” according to Da Fon.

The success of Taiwan’s plastic recycling efforts has gained worldwide attention. Many Taiwanese took pride in the so-called “eco-fabric” that was used by local companies to make the jerseys for soccer teams competing in the World Cup in both 2010 and 2014.

From soccer jerseys to wigs to building blocks, Taiwan started recycling plastic initially out of growing environmental concerns. Now it boasts a plastic recycling rate of about 73 percent, according to Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration. In 2014 alone, nearly 180,000 tons of discarded plastic was collected and turned into secondary raw materials worth $140 million.