Trinidad study looks at plastic scrap options

A study in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago has found the nation of 1.6 million people generates enough PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle scrap to supply its own recycling facility.

That was one of several suggestions stemming from the study by  Clyde Eiríkur Hull and Eric Williams of the Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology (RIT). The duo, along with Sherwyn Millette of RIT, worked on the study and a summary of it published on The Conversation website.

The co-authors say they “applied economic principles” to Trinidad’s plastic scrap management challenges, looking at the opportunity provided by the island nation’s status as part of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) trading bloc of 16 million people, as well as the challenge of the nation’s lack of landfill space.

“The most surprising finding from our study was that most of the plastic entering the country’s landfills – a total of 49,000 tons per year – was not produced or imported,” write the RIT researchers. “Rather, it entered the country as packaging around imported products, [so it] ‘came along for the ride’ with other things.”

Hull and Williams identified as “one promising finding” that people in Trinidad and Tobago discard 26,000 tons of PET bottles every year, which they deem “enough to make building a domestic recycling facility economically efficient.” Add the duo, “There is also enough domestic demand for PET bottles to use the plastic that would come from a recycling facility to make more bottles.”

Regarding other forms of plastic scrap that comes in wide varieties, it may be most efficient for it to be “burned for energy, with proper scrubbing and cleaning, as is done in Sweden,” say the researchers.