You Have the Power to Change Recycling for Good and Achieve Zero Waste

hello everybody

i’m alders hicks and i’m here to talk

about recycling

and how you and i have the power to

change recycling for good

what do i know i was a mechanical

engineer

and then a developer of small business

software

about 27 years ago i was struggling with

the data corruption

problem in the office later that night

when i was putting out my recycling

and waste bins as you do they’re staring

me in the face

was a used material corruption problem

you mix up different items all together

at the beginning

whether it is data or used materials

then they are hellishly difficult to

separate later on

in essence the items immediately lose

their value

and become well a load of rubbish a

month or so later i had written down

a used material in and

a valuable product out solution for my

home recycling bin

since my light bulb moment i’ve spent

part of my life

working out how to implement the

recycling solution

together we can recycle most of what we

use and so decrease the toll we humans

are taking on our planet over the last

27 years

there have been many setbacks many false

storms

many tests are my resilience hence this

talk

but today i’m very very optimistic

because i know we hold the power to

change the recycling world for good

starting right in our kitchens

so let me ask you if you recycle at home

of course you do like so many of us we

all dutifully collect our recyclables

perhaps you even wash them before

placing them

out on the street to be collected and

recycled

you’ve done your bit you have that

nagging fear that much

of your effort will go straight to

landfill

what can you do it’s out of our control

i’m here to show while we humans create

waste we also have the power to create a

means of truly recycling

our used materials by harnessing skills

and behaviors

we already use in our homes what

behaviours

well let me ask you what do you do with

your clothes at night

my guess is you put them in the laundry

basket but would you then say

you have done the washing

likewise when you clear away the dishes

after a meal

does stacking them by the sink mean

you have done the washing up

both the laundry and the washing up

require more than simply collecting

our clothes and our dishes

so let me ask you again when you put

your used containers into your recycling

bin

have you done the recycling the answer

is

no we have simply gathered these

valuable materials together

but there are still many steps before we

can say we have

recycled them

so what happens to these containers and

packaging items

once we have dutifully collected them

we’ve all heard of the horror stories of

mountains of recycling

ending up in landfill or the oceans

but trying to nail down the figures as

to just how much is actually recycled

is no easy task

most governments will proudly report

their domestic

recycling percentages

for example from the uk statistics on

waste in 2019

the uk claims 45 percent

both australia and the us claim lower

percentage figures

these percentages sound okay but drill

down

and you will see that figures are based

on tonnages of the domestic waste stream

collected

or recovered for recycling

not the amounts that are actually

recycled

it gets more complicated there’s

confusion about what recycling

actually means in many cases

recycling refers to down cycling

where for example a glass bottle ends up

as road base

or a soft drink container becomes a

garment or trainer’s

this is better than used material ending

up or going straight to landfill

it is just kicking the can down the road

it achieves very little environmental

benefit and it still requires sourcing

the virgin raw materials to meet the

ever increasing

demand for more and more packaging

sadly very little of what we diligently

collect

is closed loop recycled

that is when a used material can be

remade into another product

of similar value for example where there

is plastic

where a plastic soft drink bottle is

closed loop recycled

back into another soft drink bottle

please would you know two acronyms that

i use in this talk for different

plastics

the first one is pet which is

this material here the other one is hdpe

which is the plastic which makes up this

container here

the american chemistry association said

in a report in 2018

that the us pet that’s these guys

the uspt recycling rate in the united

states is 29

however in the us napcor 2017 rate

report

it said that the closed loop pet

recycling rate is just

six percent yes you all heard correctly

just six percent note the difference 29

recycled drops down to six percent

closely recycled

so why is it so vital to closely recycle

these beautiful materials

turning this used clear glass bottle

i mean back to a new clear glass bottle

means big savings in carbon emissions

mining and raw materials extraction

required for packaging

emit substantial amount of greenhouse

gases

but closed loop recycling means the

requirement for mining and extraction of

raw materials

is dramatically reduced if we closely

recycle these used materials we can

realize their true

environmental and cash value

this cash value is the real incentive

that will keep these used materials out

of landfill

and the oceans so

unlike down cycling which simply delays

the inevitable

trip to the tip close-knit recycling is

both environmentally

and financially beneficial and it is

self-sustaining

but what does this mean when it comes to

the recycling

we so carefully collect in our homes

we do not know the actual recycling

percentage achieved

for the used materials placed into our

recycling bins

whatever it is it a very much lower

percentage

is closed loop recycled

what we refer to as doing the recycling

is actually just

collecting these valuable materials

turning

and turning most of them into waste

that is a shocking situation for a

service we pay good money for

though how many of us actually know how

much

of our taxes go towards this failing

system

currently domestic recycling services do

not deliver

and that is a disaster for us and our

planet

so why are we letting so many valuable

materials go to waste

because most materials collected by the

current domestic

recycling systems become mixed up

and contaminated

despite decades of research and

development

by many clever people the world over

billions of our tax dollars spent on

infrastructure

and educating us the most advanced

domestic recycling systems in the

western world

today cannot cost effectively reduce

contamination to levels low

enough so that the recycled materials

created

sell for more than they cost

sell for more than they cost so long as

we continue mixing

these valuable materials together it is

simply not economically viable to

separate them

and the state otherwise is greenwash

how do we create a source of materials

free of contaminants

and pure enough to close the recycle

millions of households are already

practicing

the exact steps we need to take for

example

we use our washing machines to clean our

clothes

so we can reuse them over and over again

clearly we already harnessed technology

to process our household items so why

not

a domestic recycling appliance applies

that does the same for our used

materials

a machine that keeps these valuable

materials separate and pure

a machine that process them so they are

washed

dried size reduced and then stored

neatly until they can be collected and

used to create new items

what would a domestic recycling

appliance look like

and how will it work the domestic

recycling appliances in the middle

on the left hand side is a refrigerator

and the right hand side is a dishwasher

when you want to load the recycling

appliance you simply open the drawer

place the container close

the door the appliance will now send to

check

that item no confusion

about whether or not that item is

recyclable

or not if it is it’ll be returned to you

and you can dispose of it in your

rubbish bin

if it’s recyclable the appliance will

then wash

dry glass will be crushed these guys

here will be crushed

the metals here will be shredded and the

plastics will be flaked

for example when i take this bottle

this pet bottle has been flaked down

to these these are flakes which have

come from an exact same replica bottle

of that one

no education is required there’s no

confusion

the news materials will be processed in

separate streams to valuable products

let me just take these again

this bottle has some value

these flakes have a lot of value

there will be seven separately stored

products in one of seven containers

one each for pet plastics that’s these

guys one each

for hdpe three colors of glass green

clear brown

steel

and aluminium cans this photograph is of

the appliance product storage container

in the prototype currently being

developed

note the individual small containers

when one of those individual containers

is full you will pull out the storage

container

wheel it to the agreed collection point

outside your home

just like you wheel your suitcase to a

waiting taxi

a mobile app think uber will alert a

collection vehicle

which will come and empty the storage

container and weigh your products

recording the reduction in environmental

footprint you are accruing

and in the future but potentially

rewarding you with cash

for your efforts the products will be

delivered directly

to the manufacturing plants for

processing into new items

at home they’ll be big savings in time

no more putting out the recycling bin

weekly or fortnightly 50 times or 26

times a year

instead there will be between three and

eight collections per year

depending on how quickly you in fill up

the individual containers

there’ll be no smell no mess just a

clean

tidy hygienic and efficient storage

place for all those used containers

the appliance will save the recycling

hero in your house

time and energy or they might be heroes

and will make everyone in the house

feel good how soon will this technology

be available

in our homes our estimate suggests

you’ll be able to buy one in the us in

the first quarter of 2023

how much will it cost we think it’s

going to be between

3 500 and 4 000 us dollars

and that might sound a lot but consider

when domestic recycling refrigerators

first came into the u.s market 100 years

ago

in 1919 people paid

the then equivalent price of an average

new motor car

or over 11 000 us dollars in today’s

money

for their first fridge just over 30

years later

nearly 90 percent of homes had

refrigerators

will you receive a cash return yes but

not initially

additionally the sensors in the

appliance will process the return of

cash deposits

on qualifying use containers in those

jurisdictions

where governments have legislated bottle

deposit return schemes

so should we wait for governments or the

recycling industry to help us

produce such an appliance please ask

yourself this

do we need governments to help us

purchase or use a washing machine or a

dishwasher

we know what the answer is no we do not

just like we take responsibility for

washing and reusing our clothes

so we can take responsibility for

recycling our used containers

this appliance will mean you and i

can stop our used containers ending up

in landfills or oceans

together we can change recycling for

good

the future of recycling is simple it’s

as simple

as washing your clothes in a washing

machine

thank you very much