 | The people of Taiwan recycle about 90,000 metric tons of PET bottles and containers each year. This represents about 4.5 billion 600-cc (20-oz) plastic water bottles, enough to encircle Taiwan 1,080 times or to fill the Taipei 101 building—once the tallest in the world at 508 meters (1,667 feet)—three times. The number of PET bottles recycled in Taiwan is admirable, but sadly even more bottles end up in landfills and ditches, along roads and riverbanks. What can be done about these bottles and the damage they cause to our environment?
Discarded plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers account for an unimaginable amount of the world’s pollution. In 2009, Americans bought an estimated 25 billion single-serve plastic water bottles. Of those, about eight out of ten (or 20 billion) ended up in landfills. Clearly, there is room for improvement.
The problem on these bottles seems overwhelming and maybe too big for any individual to solve alone. But there are many people in the world who contribute to solve it. Alex Lo of Taiwan is one of them.
Lo runs a specialty textile company in Taipei. In 2004, he began working with the Tzu Chi International Humanitarian Aid Association (TIHAA), a group of entrepreneurs and volunteers, whose purpose is to research, develop, produce, and transport items needed for Tzu Chi disaster relief missions throughout the world. TIHAA team is responsible for clothing people in need and keeping them warm. One of the ways the team does this is by producing thousands of blankets from recycled PET bottles. In this way, Lo is doing his part to help others in need and to reduce the problem of pollution from PET bottles.
The origin of PET
PET bottles can be recycled and used to make fibers, then fabrics, and eventually blankets. Like most plastics, PET, through a very complicated process, is derived from crude oil or natural gas. This plastic is used to make fiber. In 2008, about 66 percent of collected PET ended up being converted into textile polyester, another 27 percent converted into polyester resin for bottles, while the rest were used for packaging and specialty polyesters.
Thus, polyester textiles and plastic water bottles are derived from the same parent: PET plastic. Because of the material’s excellent recyclability, PET bottles, under proper conditions, can be reverted back to the original PET polymer, from which textile polyester is produced. It is in this reversion process that Lo and his team have tapped to make recycled blankets for Tzu Chi.
PET bottles to blankets
The reversion to PET can only be accomplished from bottles stamped with identification code 1, meaning those derived from the polyethylene terephthalate polymer. Mixing plastics of other polymer types with code 1 plastic simply fouls up the PET recycling process. Trying to recycle plastics from mixed polymer types produces by-products with characteristics that are hard to predict. Unfortunately, post-consumer plastic bottles of all types arrive at recycling stations all mixed together.
Sorting bottles according to polymer type is a manual process, which could be expensive if performed by paid workers. This hurdle prevented Lo from making recycled blankets from PET bottles when the idea first dawned upon him in 1997. He had to table the idea. But he dusted it off when he came to know more about Tzu Chi.
Tzu Chi’s more than 4,500 recycling stations throughout Taiwan are staffed by over 62,000 volunteers. They put recycled bottles into piles by resin identification code, separate code 1 PET bottles by color, remove caps and cap rings, remove wrappers then flatten and finally bag the bottles. These are then transported to factories where they are shredded, rinsed, and converted back into polyester resin. From these, the polyester can be spun into yarn and woven into cloth, from which the light, soft and warm recycled blankets are made.
Lo’s team began full production by the end of 2006. By September 2008, TIHAA used about 11,856,000 bottles to make more than 152,000 blankets—around 78 PET bottles for each blanket. By October 22, 2009 the numbers increased to 21,485,000 bottles for 275,449 blankets. Tzu Chi volunteers personally gave 88.5 percent of these blankets to disaster survivors or needy people in 24 countries, while the others are sometimes given as token to volunteers.
Lo knows that recycled blankets are but one of the many potential uses of PET bottles. Brimming with energy and ideas and a little restlessness, he continues to explore other uses for Tzu Chi’s reclaimed PET bottles and has since launched related R&D projects. I saw these first-hand in October 2009, when I visited him at his textile plant in the Yangmei industrial park. Lo pointed to me a diagram on a wall depicting how bottles are reverted back to the original PET plastic polymer. “The reclamation of PET bottles is a lengthy and troublesome process, but we have to do it,” Lo said. “There is only one Earth.”
A stain-resistant fabric
Currently, Tzu Chi volunteers wear uniforms of blue shirts and white pants when on duty, which easily become soiled. Volunteers on disaster relief missions must have several extra uniforms, which could take valuable space and weight.
Lo and his team are working on a new stain-resistant fabric that will reduce the need to pack extra changes of clothing. The new fabric doesn’t easily absorb stains, while little dirt on the fabric can be easily removed with a little sprinkling of water. There is less need to wash the cloth, which saves water, electricity and detergent. The fabric is quick to dry too.
Heat-trapping fibers
A thin fabric which Lo is working on keeps its wearers warm by trapping their own body heat. He demonstrated the effectiveness of his heat-trapping fabric using two strips of fibers, one untreated and the other treated to retain body heat. Lo turned a spotlight on the strips for 30 seconds. The temperature of the untreated strip increased 12°C, from 28 to 40°C. This was to be expected. But amazingly, the temperature of the treated strip increased from 32°C to 95°C, an increase of 63 degrees. The treated strip was almost five times more efficient at absorbing heat than the untreated cloth!
These thermal fibers have several applications. For aid workers, less space in the luggage and would mean more important items to store while allowing them to be more mobile and agile. Finally, it can help keep disaster victims warm without resorting to external heat sources which are usually scarce in a disaster area.
A dual-personality fabric
Lo showed us a very thin fabric which is water-impenetrable yet very breathable. Its permeability to air makes it superior than a plastic sheet.
Lo demonstrated the amazing nature of the cloth. First, he sandwiched a piece of the new cloth between the ends of two clear, hollow, open-ended cylinders. A locking mechanism fastened the cylinders together. Next, Lo poured water into the top cylinder. The water was stopped by the white cloth. He continues to pour two to three centimeters of water but not a drop of it penetrated the fabric. I was amazed.
Afterwards, he demonstrated to us how air could pass through the fabric. He used an electric fan to force air into the cylinder. Sure enough, the air passed effortlessly through the fabric and bubbled vigorously through the water above. But not a drop of water dripped through the cloth. The fabric completely blocked the water but let the air go through freely.
The piece of fabric Lo was using for the demonstration was made from virgin PET polyester. This fabric requires highly pure PET as raw material. Lo and his team are still working to replace virgin PET with recycled PET.
The importance of proper recycling
Lo related to us what he heard from Master Cheng Yen. “There are many different kinds of volunteers in Tzu Chi, they perform a wide variety of tasks and functions. Master Cheng Yen loves all of them. But if she has to pick out just one category, she is most grateful to the volunteers that help with recycling. Those faceless, unsung recycling heroes have a special place in the Master’s heart.” Their meticulous sorting job is a key factor in the effective process of recycling.
“There is enough garbage out there to keep us sorting recyclables for the rest of our lives and many future lives.” Thus we can improve on the quality of sorting even more.
Lo told us about other projects, one involves the caps of PET bottles. Bottle caps are usually less denser than water, while the PET bottles themselves are denser. Therefore, the caps float on water while the bottles sink. By manipulating how fibers made from caps and fibers made from bottles are arranged in making a fabric, Lo would be able to control the direction of water flow through a fabric. He said that the cap/body combination could generate a dazzling array of possibilities in fabrics, buttons, and even zippers—all from discarded PET bottles.
Lo have many irons in the fire. He knows that there is just too much to do. “Even if we gave it all, we would make just a small dent in the huge problem of PET bottles. So how can we do anything less? We all need to come back and continue this effort. There’s no time to waste!” Though the challenge is daunting, Lo is not letting factors beyond his control become an excuse for not doing all he can.
Side benefits
Lo believes that Tzu Chi’s recycling efforts have more benefits than meets the eye. Clearly, recycling PET bottles reduces the use of new materials for making virgin PET, lessens its volume on landfills and prevents flooding. But Tzu Chi’s recycling program has significant social benefits beyond the environmental benefits.
Lo refers to the therapeutic effects working at a recycling station has brought to the elderly recycling volunteers. Many of them were previously inactive and stayed at home alone, dealing with depression and feelings of uselessness. This changed when they began helping at recycling stations. Health improvements are noticeable; they became less stiff and more flexible. Now that they are engaged in a very useful service, they are more hopeful and peaceful with themselves.
The Tzu Chi recycling stations throughout Taiwan are open to the public. The stations are a safe place for old folks to spend the day while their children are at work. This puts the children at peace, knowing that their parents are in good hands. The senior volunteers keep each other company. They take themselves out from solitude, physical inactivity, a sense of worthlessness and depression. How can you ascribe a dollar value to these benefits? How much are those benefits worth to the elderly volunteers, to their children, and to the society?
Say no to PET bottles
We have to stop buying or drinking bottled water. Let us all say “no” to PET bottles. This would deprive Lo’s bottles-to-fabric projects, but that is what he would like to see too. Even better than being able to recycle all those PET bottles would not be having to recycle them at all. |