Recycled Plastic to Fill Pot Holes in Fife
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Officials are looking into an idea, put forward by a West Fife Councillor, to fill pot holes in the surrounding area with recycled plastic and a trial is being put into place.
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SNP Senior Councillor, Alice McGarry, believes that this could be a great way of reusing our recycled plastic and could result in a cheaper, more sufficient way of saving Fife’s roads.
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Ideas are currently being put forward to the Scottish Government to expand Scotland’s use of waste manufacturing and using Fife as a base for this operation.
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Councillor for Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, David Barratt was able to tell more about the ideas and progress being put into place to push this idea forward.
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“There are other areas that do use this process in the UK. Fife Resource Solutions run all of Fife’s waste management and are owned by Fife. They are actively looking at all measures to redirect all waste plastic away from landfills and into more positive means.
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“Previously, a lot of the waste had been exported to China to go to plastic manufacturers there, but the subsequently decided they do not want to receive any foreign waste, so that business stream has ended and Fife is having to export it elsewhere.
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“Fife has managed to secure a contract for that which is good news, but we are also looking at all other possibilities. One of those would be developing domestic markets for our own waste which would be the ideal long-term solution for dealing with our own plastic rather than relying on foreign markets.”
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He also said “There are companies that use waste plastic in manufacturing. There are also companies that use it to create a concrete styled slab that they can use to build walls and buildings, so there are lots of different solutions that this process can be redirected into.
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“The issue that we have at the moment is that the quality of the waste plastic that we produce is not good enough to be suitable for those kind of uses so in order to go into that use we would need to improve the quality.
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“One of the ways Fife is currently looking into to improve the quality of our waste plastic is to take advantage of the Scottish Government’s deposit return scheme which is being proposed.
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“At the moment it is just an idea but it will be rolled out by the Scottish Government at some point. Fife is already actively writing to the Scottish Government and encouraging them to use Fife as a hub for the deposit return scheme and is in a good position to do that.”
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It is still uncertain when this idea will be addressed by the Scottish Government, however this could be a big step for Fife, and other areas in Scotland, if the Scottish Government can move forward with this process of reusing our recycled plastic for maintenance and manufacturing.