Do you think industrial waste and dust around us are a problem for us and the environment? Do you think plastic is a problem for us and the environment? I don’t think they are a problem. I see them as a solution. A solution for achieving UN’s SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). A solution for creating a circular economy. A solution for addressing the rising resource crunch. A solution for the rising climate changes due to environmental issues.
I am Manish Kothari, a mechanical engineer by profession, NOT a qualified economist NOR a qualified environmental engineer. But I am sure a part of the economy and part of the environmental problems. So how can we convert this waste plastic and industrial waste, which you think is a problem or in other words a LIABILITY, to a solution or in other words an ASSET?
Allow me to share one of the possible solutions – the Silica Plastic Block solution, both these waste resources now can play a huge role in helping fulfil UN’s SDG 12 which is improving the life cycle of resources while impacting climate change factors and SDG 8 which is contributing to opportunities for economic growth at the local level. Let’s examine how can wasted resources – plastic bags and dust from the industry – play a central role in contributing to the Circular Economy?
Concepts of Circular Economy
Before jumping onto the solution, it is important to understand the concepts of circular economy and linear economy and how they affect the life cycle of our resources, and also the extent of the impact of resource consumption.
The circular economy is nothing new. It is related to the reuse and recycling of resources which we have traditionally been doing for centuries (add village example – Cow Dung is one of the examples where we can see the resource being reused and recycled giving energy & fertilizer, fertilizer helping vegetation, vegetation becoming fodder for cows). In a circular economy, the resources that we borrow from the planet are used, reused and recycled, therefore having a longer lifecycle while they were generating income.
Linear economy, on the other hand, is our current model of economy. It is Take-Make-Consume —- Discard economy. We have drifted to this type of economy probably as higher productivity and innovation reduced the initial costs, or maybe higher purchasing power which allowed us to buy and throw, or maybe the economy did not adjust to the shift of materials and trends as we progressed – take the example of plastic disposable glasses versus washable steel glasses or chips in a plastic packet versus homemade snacks in a tiffin. These are examples of the linear economy that we see day in and day out.
This shift of habit probably also encouraged mass production to keep lowering the cost, but also kept increasing the availability of cheaper and better use & throw products. Which of course led to more waste production, especially plastic, which now all of us think is a nuisance and a threat to the environment. We have not just reduced the life of the resources but have also been consuming way more than we are supposed to. On average, we are using 1.7 times more of the resources. I read reports that we consumed our quota of resources for the year by the time we reached July or August – 4 to 5 months before the year was over!!
Alarming it was and alarming it is!!
Since people are consuming mass production products, the production is getting being done in large centralized facilities in large industrial parks and a gradual decrease in the inputs in the local economy. Do you see? This is a vicious cycle of production and consumption with very less reuse and recycling that is not just shortening the life of our resources but also killing the local circular economies.
How could we do something that was better & cheaper or at least the same cost, extended the life of resources, and at the same time strengthen the local economy? This led to an understanding of what could be the objectives to make any solution acceptable and implementable. This brings me back to the SPB – Silica Plastic Block Project, where the waste plastic and industrial waste become the key components to help us create local revenue that is also reducing the impact on the environment while keeping the costs acceptable to the consumer of today.
The project of silica plastic block is one of the innovative business models that serve as a solution to contribute to SDG 8 and SDG 12. The SPB is made of only two resources. Waste plastic and industrial dust. Both of which are considered a problem by most of us. But, for us, they are resources for a greater solution.
Foundry Dust: A Health & Pollution Hazard
Dust and sand after use in the industry was being dumped, which potentially was also a health or pollution hazard. The quantity is not small. In India alone, I estimate about 12 Million MT of waste dust is produced annually. This can fill around 5 million Olympic sized swimming pools. And single-use plastic, I don’t even need to give you any numbers to help you understand how much of it is produced. Just go out on the road and you can see it for yourself. About 70% of this plastic is not being recycled.
In 2017 when we at Rhino Machines accepted a challenge from the foundry industry to find a solution for this 12 million MT sand, and during this research, we found plastic (which we consider a problem) as the solution to a larger understated issue. The challenge came as a subset of the sand reclamation solution which we had already developed and there was a need to look at the Zero Discharge (Pollution) solution while being cost-effective as the 2 problem statements put up to us by the industry.
Rhino decided to work on the project with its own internal funds, knowing well the subject, as this aligned with the mission statement, though we did have our ups & downs in R&D due to financial constraints. The team of our R&D particularly Rajnikant worked with me to find how this could be done. After several iterations and 2 years of R&D we could figure out a solution that could bring life to the demons and move them from liability to asset, and then another 2 years of R&D during the pandemic with a group of community conscious people & associations and industry experts in the architectural ecosystem to build a product portfolio & business model which would allow this R&D to be commercialized meeting all the 3 Objectives – Economical, Local & using Waste Resources
With the SPB Project, from our analysis based on the 12 Million MT of Waste Dust from the Foundry, we project a consumption of 3 Million MT of waste plastic per annum in India. And that takes me to the circular economy basics, localization of production and consumption. The SPB solution shows how using locally generated waste we are able to create a local economy, and so what we consume starts circulating within the local ecosystem.
A business model which consumes local waste
Every 100 MT of SPB production per annum employs 10 people, generates Rs 15 lakhs or 1.5 million of revenue and saves 126 MT of resources. Yes, it is true that due to the lesser product density of SPB, we actually send up saving more than what we would have consumed. The money which the local region would spend on buying cement and sand from outside would now go to the pockets of these enterprises who would make products from the waste of their own region. And as the money keeps rotating inside, it helps in building a local circular economic model, which gets insulated from the impact of changes in the external supply chains.
And the indirect impacts would be – lesser pollution meaning better health, a better quality of air and water, and a lower carbon footprint from transporting materials from distant lands. What starts as an SDG12, expanded first to SDG8 and together this would connect to almost all the SDGs as defined in the 2030 vision for climate action. Resource Recycling thus to me is not only about the environment, but has impacts that go beyond climate change, and impact the economy, building a model of circularity within a region going from nation to state to district to taluka to block level.
Using waste industry dust and plastic to create a circular economy is only one of the many solutions. Data suggests that plastic waste is just 10-12% of the solid waste, which is helping consume another unaccounted solid waste that probably is not highlighted yet. I am presenting two sets of data from the World Bank which show the solid waste and the extent of recycling – the mission for us at Rhino now moves to identifying how we can look at building resource recycling hubs, building an economy at the district level, extending our experience of Resource Recycling for building a Circular Economy Model.