I’m pitching tonight for a business soft plastics recycling program in Canberra. This is for the CIT Trade Waste Hackathon that’s been going for a few weeks.

I was originally part of a random team that was looking at solutions for excess new tiles from kitchen and bathroom installations. However, I realised that I would be of more value if I proposed something in my own area of interest – plastic waste! Fortunately, the organisers agree to let me pursue that project on my own.

So, I’ve chatted with two manufacturers that I know that make these types of things from recycled soft plastic, and will be pitching an idea to create a soft plastic stewardship program where the plastic is turned into bollards that the ACT Government buys back.

I feel like the business case is pretty solid, but whether or not the ACT Government is serious about such changes and is willing to accept a buy-back scheme, I have no idea. So, for the moment I suggested a pilot with 1 tonne worth of plastic which will cost them about $5k.

We’ll see how things go tonight! Fingers crossed. With any luck, we could start the pilot pretty quickly for a business soft plastics recycling program in Canberra.