Daman Ganga Tetrapak Recycling Plant
by urbzoo
urbz was invited to visit the factory where the Poly Al sheets it used for the roof of the Dharavi Shelter were produced. The Poly Al sheets were donated by the Daman Ganga plant. We used them to replace the corrugated concrete sheets that were used before for the roof. These concrete corrugated sheets are made with asbestos and used all over Dharavi and all over India.
Photos of the Shelter:
www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/sets/72157625409426855/
The Poly Al sheets made with recycled tetrapak are a mix of plastic and aluminum. Tetrapak are extremely difficult to recycle because they are made of 4 layers of plastic, one layer of paper and one layer of aluminum. It can only be recycled in a plant such as this one.
Info about Poly Al sheets:
www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/5160342365/sizes/l/in/set-72...
The Daman Ganga plan is located in Vapi, Gujarat and owned by Tushar Shah. The plant is currently working at 20% of its capacity and trying to increase its output to respond to a growing demand for the material it produces.
The consumption of tetrapak in India increases 35% every year. It was 3 billion ton in 2010 and it is expected to grow to 4 billion in 2011. Yet collection of used Tetrapak is not optimal at the moment and only 5 to 10% of the recycled tetrapak at the Daman Ganga plant come from India. The rest is imported.
Tetrapak is helping this plant collect material because it has a quota which was imposed by the government. This effort goes through Tetrapak India's CSR department.
Recycling doesn't mean biodegrading. At the end of the day, recycled or not the material will still take centuries to biodegrade.
Apparently in Sweden the type of tetrapak that is being used in India is banned. Alternative technologies do exist and it would be good if they were used everywhere in the world.
