Our solution consists of hand compactor hardware and digital recyclables marketplace mobile software.
The proposed pot-sized lever operated hand compactor is capable of crushing up to gallon sized plastic containers. Each household will have the compactor and instructed to use it for every piece of bulky recyclable. They will store the compacted recyclables separated by type, such as PET, LDPE, HDPE, PP, aluminum, other metal. Plastic packaging can also be stuffed into plastic bags, which can then also be compacted and treated as LDPE film.
Households can be incentivized to do so by being able to sell their recyclables on our digital marketplace. The marketplace operates like a mobile wholesaling platform, whereby households (sellers) can post what and how much recyclables they hold and recylables processors (buyers) can make monetary offers. The mobile app will have additional buyer tools for optimizing collection schedules and seller tools for education on plastics separation.
Is this economically feasible? Yes! By a large margin in fact, even without government subsidies accounting for the spillover benefit of decreased pollution and landfill use.
Household plastic recyclables can fetch $0.8 to $2 per kg depending on plastic type and macro oil prices. The caveat is that they must be well separated. Even small contamination of foreign material in a PET bale can lower its grade and half its market value. This is why source separation is so crucial. Otherwise, entropy rapidly increases down the trash stream. If recyclables get mixed with each other and trash, it becomes cost prohibitive to recover high grade recyclables.
Collection costs are also high because many plastics are bulky. However, household compaction can reduce volume 10x and also lower collection frequency and costs by the same factor. A household can easily store 50-100 kg of compacted recyclables before needing collection, thus lowering collection costs to pennies per kg!
Lastly we must lower the transactional costs between households and recylables processors. Fortunately, this can be done via a digital recyclables marketplace. Households can post their recyclables inventory via mobile app while processors can bid to collect from households. Payments can be made to households when processors collect. We can also enable processors to optimize collection schedules and routes, reducing transportation emissions. We can charge a fee off each transaction to be profitable.
The 1kg trash per capita in Latin America can translate into $300 per annum or 5-20% extra income per capita! Meanwhile reducing plastics pollution. A true win-win!
