Product Stewardship

Our way of life

PLAST-AX is a supplier that NZ waste collection service providers trust to deliver environmentally sustainable outcomes: tangible, economically-viable solutions through the whole life of a bin. 

Working together we can keep New Zealand clean for the future.

The PLAST-AX vision for a circular economy is to advance recycling capabilities, to increase demand for recycled material, and to ensure that every single one of our products has a proven sustainable process to ensure that at end of life it can be reincluded for another iteration of its recycling journey.

Product stewardship is not something you can complete, exactly, or graduate from, it is a way of life.

Firstly we separate out our tank grade hexene and from other soft plastic, packaging, and general waste so that we have a single polymer to recycle. 

This is absolutely critical to the overall success of any plastic recycling program. 

Prior to processing, our material is isolated, clearly marked, and the plant is cleaned down with a purge. 

The product is then chipped, melted, dyed, and filtered through a screen mesh to remove any contamination. 

At this phase we currently dye the plastic black  (3% master batch) because the source material is a mixture of colours. In future when there is sufficient signal colour input volume, we will be able to add masterbatch colour and run full batches of other colours. 

The extruded material is then cut into granules and cooled to harden for storage.

The black granules are then ready for their next phase in being ground evenly to a finished mouldable powder.Consistent product size is crucial for our final rotational moulding phase to come, and we partner with experienced providers to utilise their expertise in this area.

The granules are sucked up and feed through grinding discs; the resultant powder is sifted through a shaking hopper, removing any inconsistency in size, before being bagged and clearly labelled.

So much of the success of any recycling program is in the ability to keep source material clean and separate, but then also to be able to batch isolate throughout the process, especially where a number of parties are working together. You need companies and people that really care.

The ground powder is weighed out into its respective shot weights for rotational moulding in the PLAST-AX tooling.

We cost in an additional 15% of material to the shot weight (as compared to virgin material) – this is probably once again an overkill, but we always prefer to over engineer when we are pushing the boundaries with new innovations – it’s just the PLAST-AX way.

At this phase there is really no difference to how we would operate with virgin material.

The tooling cradle rotates through the X axis and the Oven rocks through the Y axis for the 40 minute cook cycle and on to the 30 minute cool before demoulding and jigging the finished bins.

Finished bins imaged to the left! Awesome result.

These bins are made from 100% NZ recycled plastic, we put these bins through the full range of tests for FEL bins. This includes the 1200kg load in the 3m3 strapped in for 100x consecutive lifts.

It was seriously impressive to watch them handle the whole test with absolute ease, showing no signs at all of stress or reduction in performance as a result of using recycled plastic virgin material. This is a real tribute to the achievability of a circular economy (and our ability to deliver on it).

Having your PLAST-AX FEL bins collected at end of life and have them remoulded back into new FEL bins for another iteration of waste collection is not a story, it is not a dream – it is an absolute reality that PLAST-AX is here to deliver on.

First inspired at the WasteMINZ conference in 2018, PLAST-AX has been committed to a voluntary product stewardship programme since January 2019.
It has been submitted to MFE for official accreditation; this provides a clear structure with operating deliverables and diversion goals for now and in the future.
PLAST-AX has funded all the time, materials and capital cost required to implement and develop the ability and processes to make this project function.

Now

Now and as we go – it’s a journey