How JA$100 for Plastic Bottles can be converted into Tru North Deck Plastic Lumber

“(Plastic) could be a part of building products in Jamaica that we can manufacture. One of the possibilities of that is a thing called plastic lumber”

Richard Phillips, an employee of Tru North Deck, commenting on the idea of recycling Plastic to make construction material

Jamaica needs to have an end-of-life solution for Plastic of all forms in Jamaica and not just Plastic Bottles.

Canada-based Tru North Deck may have just the thing with their product Plastic Lumber as reported in the article “Plastic Lumber Touted As New Way Forward For Construction In Jamaica”, Published Thursday September 1, 2016 by Jason Cross, The Jamaica Gleaner. 

So says Richard Phillips, an employee of the company that converts any plastic, be it plastic bottles and plastic bags into construction material. Plastic lumber is plastic extruded to have the appearance of lumber and is often made from freshly produced PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) Plastic.

If it's made from recycled plastic, it's called RPL (Recycled Plastic Lumber). Made of 100% plastic it also differs from wood-plastic composite lumber and is often used for the following applications:

1.      Outdoor decking

2.      Molding and Trim

3.      Garden furniture

4.      Construction lumber

It's also used to make other construction material products traditionally made from wood, such as awnings and umbrellas. More interestingly it easier to colour and treat, albeit cutting plastic lumber take some skill, as a traditional saw will not work.

So could this be a good fit for Jamaica given our Plastic Pollution Problem?

Tru North Deck and Plastic Lumber – VAP from Recycled Plastic clogging our Drains

This plastic lumber would be a perfect end-of-life solution for Plastic currently being burned in the Riverton City Dump as Richard Phillips points out, quote: “What I see as part of the solution is the appointment of someone who would come and give a fair and balanced approach, so the persons on the dump, the 2,000 people on the dump, will get a fair and equitable amount of money and the product is reused in Jamaica. Right now it's wasted”.

Tru North Deck holds the right to the process, which basically sees plastic masticated into a powder and then re-molded into construction material as hinted in by Richard Phillips, quote: “I work with a company that has proprietary rights to a formulation that integrates all kinds of plastic into lumber. They have a 500,000 square ft factory; they are the leading company in Canada (that) manufactures plastic lumber. They process annually about 125 million lbs of plastic recycling per year (and) are willing to help set up a company here in Jamaica”.

Given the amount of Plastic and Styrofoam Jamaica produces and recent call for a Ban on Styrofoam, which Wisynco plans to comply with as noted in my blog article entitled “Why Wisynco making coloured Biodegradable Styrofoam heralds Beeswax Cardboard Packaging”, this could potentially become a lucrative export product.

After all, Plastic doesn’t biodegrade and can be thickened to make very durable ants and insect resistant building material. It would also reduce the use of trees in construction and could potentially reduce illegal logging in Jamaica that the Forestry Department has to deal with as I'd pointed out in my blog article entitled “Why Jamaica Forestry Department's Forest Act needs updating with bigger fines and Drones”.  

Not all Jamaica needs to do is collect plastic by giving Jamaicans JA$100 as I'd proposed in my blog article entitled “How JA$100 for recycling 500ml Plastic bottles and Styrofoam Ban will save Jamaica's Environment”, as this is an example of a VAS (Value Added Product) that can be made from recycled plastic.