Testing the New Recycling Machinery

Jun 26, 2020 | Waste Management, Recycling and Upcycling

On Tuesday, 17 June 2020, Matt Ellks, Kadek Madja, and eight people from Bondalem Village came to R.O.L.E.’s Environmental Centre. The purpose of the visit was to see how the new recycling machinery operates and take them to Bondalem Village.

Machinery that plays an important role

As mentioned in the previous blog post, both R.O.L.E. Foundation and Bondalem waste site will have a glass crusher, plastic shredder, washing table, and sorting table as part of the Bondalem Project. These items play important roles in the waste management process. Recycling itself means repurposing waste into new materials and objects, hence adding more value to it while preventing them from ending up in the landfill.

How the machinery works

A demonstration of the machinery was given by David from Bali Ecological Centre. They are providing machinery. After the machinery was installed, David demonstrated the usage of the machines to the people from Bondalem and R.O.L.E. Foundation.

First, he explained how to use the washing table and some of us were also participating in the cleaning process. David then put the bottles one by one into the glass crusher. Basically, the glass crusher crushes the bottles and the crushed materials are collected in a bucket under the machine. The crushed glasses are also safe to touch because they are not sharp at all. But of course, it is better to use special gloves and glasses to operate this machine safely.

The plastic shredder works with the same mechanism as the glass crusher. Unlike our existing plastic shredder that shreds HDPE and PP plastic, this plastic shredder processes soft plastic types that are usually considered as non-valuable.

Safely arrived in Bondalem

The plastic shredder, washing table, and sorting table have already safely arrived at Bondalem waste site. The glass crusher with a smaller capacity will also arrive there soon. In the meantime, the roof construction of the Waste Management eco-station in R.O.L.E.’s Environmental Centre is almost finished. Find out about the progress in the next blog post!