An increasing number of companies in the Czech Republic have built their business on waste processing. Crushed PET bottles, milk containers, wood cuttings and sawdust can be reused as material for new buildings, briquettes for fire places, and even statues.
“Simply put, we process paper milk and juice containers to produce construction panels. We launched this building material and the Flexibuild system on the market. There should be 14 family houses built from it by the end of this year,” said Zdeněk Forman, director of the company Flexibuild. Established less than a year ago, the company generated CZK 1.5 million in sales in the very first quarter of its activity and has recorded an increasing demand for its services.
“The material has been used in dozens of houses and construction projects as part of renovations. During the construction of a water disposal plant, it was used on the walls and roof as well as for furniture production,” Forman added.
Plastic statues
The chemicals producer Spolchemie based in Ústí nad Labem has decided to reuse assorted PET bottles to produce resin.
“Such resin can be used in the production of artificial stone, piping systems and decorative statues,” said Zdeněk Rytíř, spokesman for Spolchemie. Synthetic resin production in Spolchemie accounts for almost three quarters of the company’s CZK 5 billion annual sales.
According to estimates by companies involved in waste management, roughly one million tonnes of waste is reprocessed in the Czech Republic every year.
And it does not have to be only the “standard” recycled waste. The company Asan.cz buys out waste, used to produce feminine and child hygiene products. It uses the material to manufacture bedding for pets, which it exports to 13 countries all over the world.
The company Biomac, based in Uničov, produces wooden briquettes from “idle” wooden cuttings, and is one of the biggest biofuel producers. Its turnover increased from CZK 500,000 in 2000 to CZK 244 million in 2006.
The amount of waste collected in the Czech Republic for reuse every year approaches one million tonnes. Roughly half the amount is recycled waste.
A tonne of plastics for CZK 3,000
But not all waste collected in the Czech Republic is reused in the country. “Well assorted waste is a marketable commodity. If arranged and pressed together, it can be sold anywhere, so it is also exported from the Czech Republic. Most of these exports head for western Europe, but the waste also goes to China and the US,” said Martin Lochovský of Ekokom, which provides collection and reuse of packaging.
Although the waste business in the Czech Republic involves hundreds of millions of crowns a year, waste as a basic “production material” is quite cheap.
“The prices of plastic waste have now decreased considerably owing to the crisis. Before the global financial crisis broke out, a tonne of clear plastic was bought out at CZK 8,000 and a tonne of coloured plastic at CZK 6,000, but now clear plastic costs roughly CZK 5,000 and coloured plastic CZK 3,000,” Lochovský said.
A house built from recycled plastic materials is therefore much cheaper than a standard brick building.
