Community group creates local recycling solutions for plastic bottle lids

The Jesuit Social Services’ (JSS) Ecological Justice Hub partners with Precious Plastics Melbourne to recycle plastic bottle lids – which are not currently recycled – while providing education and job-readiness programs for people with disabilities and the long-term unemployed.

The plastic recycling program works with different groups. School groups and neighbourhood houses collect the plastic lids. Milparinka, an organisation that provides support for people with disability, helps to wash and sort the plastic bottle lids. JSS moulds pots, carabiners and utility sheets from the soft and hard polyurethane.

As well as addressing some practical challenges of using plastic in a circular economy, the JSS’s program has behavioral impacts that support systemic change in the waste to resource sector. The organisation has identified that a great way to reduce plastic waste is through education.

As JSS’s Ecological Justice Hub Program Coordinator Stuart Muir Wilson says, 'The aim of our program is to demystify plastics. Participating in this program educates people about the energy and effort used to recycle, and why refusing single-use plastic is a better strategy. An even bigger and more transformative outcome is building people’s confidence in their own ability to learn.'

The bottle caps go through a three-stage process. The first step is to clean, sort then grind the plastic into usable crumbs. Then the crumbs are melted into various molds. The melting process ensures that the plastic doesn’t create toxic fumes. In the future, the program aims to melt the crumbs into 3D printing filament which will allow the team to make a bigger variety of products. In the final step, melted plastic can be inserted into a sheet press to make boards, which can be used as larger planter boxes, picture frames, furniture, shelving and even jewellery.

Setting up the program, JSS had technical help from US engineering students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, on placement from Banksia Gardens in Broad Meadows. The students helped test and document the recycling process.

Over seven weeks, the students recorded instructional videos for each machine, available on YouTube, and created a specially designed in-feed funnel for crumbs. They also produced a 50-page report documenting the systemic plastic pollution problem and the global grass roots precious plastic recycling solution. They prototyped new moulds with 3D printing and even surveyed people at CERES to find out what products people want the most.

At this stage, JSS’s program is not scalable – it would require more space and funding to expand. So the program now is focusing on the educational opportunities.

Strategic partnerships have helped the small and technical program to build some momentum. Stuart says, 'The engineering students really helped develop products and educational resources and we would Iike that kind of assistance again. It would be great to have similar partnerships with Australian universities.'

Driving circular economy at a local scale

Sustainability Victoria provides local communities across the state with the tools and knowledge they need to participate in the shift to a circular and more sustainable way of living.

Over the past decade, Sustainability Victoria has supported 137 community groups to deliver sustainability impacts in their local communities including tool libraries, repair cafes, composting hubs and food sharing initiatives. This project was funded through one such initiative, the Circular Economy Communties Fund.

Read our community circular economy initiative guides.