Case Study - Penguin Composites
The project
- The project will seek to reduce costs of waste disposal by finding alternative disposal methods for identified waste streams, including:
- co-processing of fibre composite waste
- recycling of cardboard and plastic film waste
Download the Case Study - Penguin Composites (PDF 2.1 MB).
Background
- The company manufactures high-quality fibre composite products for global supply chains in the defence, marine, energy and automotive industries.
- A large proportion of waste generated in-process is offcut fibre composite material, which has very limited options for recycling or re-use.
Objectives
- Reduce waste to landfill.
- Maintain or reduce current costs.
Targets
- Reduce waste to landfill by 50%.
- Maintain or reduce current waste disposal costs.
Outcomes
What was implemented?
- Recycling cardboard, co-mingled, steel, aluminium and drums.
- Fortnightly kerbside pickup for co-mingled has begun for both sites.
- More reliable metal recycler engaged - this one even pays us!
- Staff education program has begun.
- Collaborated and conducted experiments to seek secondary uses for fibre composites.
Key issues
- How to deal with ‘problem’ wastes, for example fibreglass offcuts, resins and MDF - MDF is a real issue and can’t be recycled.
- We looked at many options for fibreglass but mainly tried to reduce waste generation at the source.
Performance against targets
- We reduced our waste to landfill by approximately 35% across the site.
- We were able to maintain our current costs as the return from the metal recycler has offset additional costs of recycling.
Lessons learnt
- Waste management can be really challenging, all businesses have their own unique problems.
- It’s great that Tasmanian businesses are genuine in their efforts to do something about it.
- Touring the recycling plant really opened my eyes to the amount of waste that we all generate, it’s actually quite mind blowing.