ASSOCIATION NEWS
Polystyrene housing: Recycled PS scrap + patented chemical mix to create solid wall system Government approves construction of a million houses using patented system THE Polystyrene Packaging Council used its AGM hosted at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town recently to talk about its successes over the past year and inspire industry role players to take part in the association’s numerous projects that have not only developed viable end-markets for recycled polystyrene, but are also touching lives and improving communities around South Africa. One of the most exciting undertakings the PSPC is currently engaged with is a pilot project that has found a viable endmarket for contaminated, coloured and black polystyrene. The PSPC recently partnered with Hennie Snyman of GC Construction and the Mobile Educational and Training Trust (NPO), who have developed a global patented chemical mixture that uses recycled scrap polystyrene to create a solid wall system for use in the construction industry. “The exciting thing here is that this recycled scrap polystyrene includes coloured, black or contaminated polystyrene used in food packaging applications, including fastfood trays, takeaway cups or trays used to package meat and fresh fruit,” explained PSPC director Adri Spangenberg. Spangenberg said that the SABS had subjected the GCC- and METT-patent-
Among the guests at the PSPC function in Cape Town were Mark Boddy of Lanco Wood Moulding, Elma Pollard of ‘The Green Times’, Vanessa Paulse of Mam Sebenzi, Kirsten Barnes of WastePlan (seated in front), Tina Krynauw (also WastePlan), Alison Davidson (City of Cape Town), Ian Clink of Polyoak and Tom McLaughlin of Woolworths
ed chemical mixture to a series of tests, from fire and water-penetration tests to load-bearing, impact and stress tests. The results were “off the charts” and were met with unprecedented success. It was also the first time in history that polystyrene has sustained heat at 1 800˚C. After a two-hour fire test, using 15 000 litres of diesel, the tested panel remained intact. Following the completion of the test, the outer temperature of the polystyrene waste and chemical panel had dropped 21˚C from the start of the test to two hours in furnace. Spangenberg said that GC Construction has received the go-ahead from
the government to contribute to the construction of 1 million houses in Africa using the patented chemical mixture. To meet this demand, three factories will be built in each of South Africa’s nine provinces and use the patented, dry-mix formula (produced at the flagship factory in Pretoria), to manufacture the wall panels. Each 1 200cm x 500cm panel is made from 12kg of recycled polystyrene, waste and chemicals. www.polystyrenepackaging.co.za
Automated collection of recycled polystyrene
The PSPC recently installed software at Doxa Deo School in Hartebeespoort Dam as a pilot phase to coordinate the collection of breadtags in the area and will soon be rolling out the software to the rest of the country during the next six months
THE Polystyrene Council is going high tech with the collection of high impact polystyrene. A new application (app) for SmartPhones and computers, called PolyNet, has been developed specifically for the PSPC to automate the entire process between the project coordinators, collectors and recyclers. “Instead of spending days trying to manually put collectors and recyclers in contact with each other and to arrange collections, the entire process is now automated and simplified,” says Adri Spangenberg, PSPC director. With a click of a mouse, the 600 coordinators of the volunteers who are collecting breadtags for the Breadtags for Wheelchairs project can register on the Council’s website (www. polystyrenepackaging.co.za) when they have
enough breadtags (approximately 680kg), to be collected anywhere in the country. “The software flags a local collector of the material who is instructed to do the collection and even works out the logistics with the recyclers”, Adri explains. “We have recently installed the software at Doxa Deo School in Hartebeespoort Dam as a pilot phase and will soon be rolling out the software to the rest of the country”, Adri says. The same technology will also be employed by the PSPC to coordinate the collection of yoghurt tubs from more than 20 Eco-Schools around the country which gets recycled into Tutu Desks, as well as the contaminated postconsumer polystyrene for use in construction projects.
www.polystyrenepackaging.co.za