With increased emphasis on the effects of climate change and the health of our planet, organizations around the Australia are looking for new opportunities to recycle their waste whenever possible. Although many are unaware, polystyrene is actually a recyclable material, however, it’s believed that around 10,000 tons of it get thrown away each year.

Albury City Council wanted to raise awareness about the benefits of recycling polystyrene and also increase the amount of polystyrene they recycle in their local area. That’s why they decided to cooperate with GREENMAX. Together, we devised an initiative to make it happen.

What Challenges Were Albury City Council Facing With Polystyrene?

It’s estimated that the average household produces around 40kg of polystyrene waste a year. That’s a pretty staggering amount when you consider a large quantity of this simply gets sent to landfill each year. Albury City Council faced challenges with large amounts of waste being dropped off at their sites with no solution to recycle it all.

As they’re a forward-thinking organization, the organization was highly aware of its impact on the environment and their local councils. They also understood that recycling polystyrene could open up new opportunities to support other organizations in their local area.

Polystyrene is a complex material to process at the end of its life due to its light weight and bulky nature, making it unsustainable to transport in large quantities. This meant the Albury City Council were experiencing high volumes of polystyrene reaching their sites with few options to remove it quickly.

The organization also wanted to clear misconceptions around recycling polystyrene. They were passionate about raising awareness about the benefits of recycling polystyrene and reducing waste volume in their local area.

How Did GREENMAX Help Them Overcome These Challenges?

After taking the time to understand Albury City Council’s current situation and what they wanted to achieve, together, we created a new initiative.

The first recycling equipment used by Albury City Council to deal with polystyrene waste was an off white machine with a mini hopper. The capacity of this machine is about 20-40kg/hour while marked with capacity 100kg/hour, resulting in low efficiency in the actual polystyrene recycling process. Besides, because the opening of this machine is only 500mm, large polystyrene waste materials such as pods waste will not be thrown in; and its crushing is not strong enough, so large materials need to be broken manually first.

After enduring the inefficiency and laboriousness of the old machine for several years, Albury finally decided to replace it in July 2020, instead introducing a GREENMAX Polystyrene Melting Machine with a full set of automatic systems: including automatic cutting, water cooling and automatic packaging.

This system has the following advantages:

1. Effective Crushing System Improved Efficiency

The GREENMAX Polystyrene Melting Machine is equipped with a powerful crushing system and a 1.2m-wide opening, so all polystyrene waste materials, whether large or small, solid or soft, can be directly thrown into the machine and crushed into small scraps.

2. Saved 50% Labor and 30% Electricity Costs

Due to the high degree of automation, the worker’s job is just to put the waste on the conveyor belt without reeling, which helps Albury City Council save at least 50% of labor costs and 30% of electricity costs.

3. Increased Profits by Selling Compressed Polystyrene Blocks

The hot-melt polystyrene waste material is better shaped, and the material out of the unit volume is heavier, so the shipping efficiency is improved, and higher profit from selling compressed polystyrene materials is obtained.

4. Humanized Operation Process

The GREENMAX Polystyrene Melting Machine customized for Albury City Council is equipped with a conveyor, so workers don’t need to lift their shoulders to feed materials. The whole process saves manpower and is user-friendly.

INTCO Recycling will buy back the compressed polystyrene blocks waste generated by Albury City Council to make frames and sell them to retail stores around the world, such as Walmart, Zara Home, and Target. This truly realizes a circular economy, that is, unpleasant rubbish turns into beautiful works of art, which promotes the recycling of resources and the endless development of human society.

GREEMAX hopes to work out the problems that have troubled you in recycling polystyrene with our expertise. Please contact us to Get Your Customized Recycling Solution Now.