Dzerzhinsk’s young residents taught how to make useful items from recycled plastic
24 may 2021
The Recycling Workshop set up at R. E. Alexeyev Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University’s Dzerzhinsky Polytechnic Institute with the support of SIBUR and as part of its Formula for Good Deeds Formula social investment program, has launched a series of educational master classes on plastics recycling. About a hundred Dzerzhinsk residents took part in the workshops over the course of two days. The educational master classes will be continued throughout 2021.
These practice-focused classes are designed to help foster local residents’ environmental culture and awareness. The Recycling Workshop has been rigged up with all necessary equipment for conducting the full cycle of polymer recycling. The plastic recycling conveyor assembly is made up of two pieces of machinery: a shredder and a thermoforming machine. The former shreds plastic bottle caps while the latter melts recyclable materials and makes new finished products.
Prior to the start of the practical part of the master class, experts from Zerowaste.lab, a creative research laboratory, taught the participants how to correctly identify different types of plastic and recyclable raw materials while introducing them to the equipment used in the production process. Following that, the experts walked Dzerzhinsk’s junior residents through a full cycle of recycling turning used plastic caps into a small-sized mug. At first, the participants of the master class sorted out the plastic, and then shredded it using the shredder, and loaded it into the thermoforming machine to produce a finished mug. The master classes ended with an eco-themed quiz for its participants.
The class was very intense and interactive. I would also like to commend the organizers for using a very visual and easy to grasp format, allowing one to see with one’s own eyes the entire process of recycling, Alexander Burlakov, a master class participant, noted.
The machine installed at the workshop only works with bottle caps. This is a demonstration version, hence the miniature size of the finished products (a mug, a saucer, a spoon). The items thus made can be used at home: one can fill them with liquids or use them as containers for storing things. While it takes this machine two to three minutes to complete the plastics recycling process, an industrial version is capable of churning out several dozens of products in a minute.
It is hard to overestimate the importance of the recycling workshop opened at our institute, since the problem of recycling plastic waste is a problem not only for Dzerzhinsk, but also for all industrial cities of Russia. The more workshops like this are operated at the country’s educational institutions, the easier it will be to educate our people about proper ways of treating of plastic waste, Alexander Petrovsky, Director of R.E. Alexeyev NGTU’s Dzerzhinsk Polytechnic Institute, noted. The workshop’s classes will be a natural match for the general context of our work with school students in the framework of the Formula for Good Deeds program. In a nutshell, both students of the institute and the city’s school students will have an opportunity to take an active part in activities conducted at the workshop and be frequent guests there.
The Recycling Workshop is a comprehensive environmental project aimed at developing a system of separate plastic waste collection and recycling. The first recycling workshop was opened in Tobolsk in December 2020, followed by the second one opening in late April 2021 in Dzerzhinsk. Two more similar ones are slated to be set up in Nizhnevartovsk and Tomsk throughout 2021. In Dzerzhinsk, the project has been implemented by the Success Foundation with the support of SIBUR, by Nizhegorodskaya Oblast’s regional administration, and by the city’s administration since 2020. Its goals include environmental education and developing a generally accepted view of plastics as a recycled raw material to be used for manufacturing new products. The project will focus on several activities: setting up recycling workshops in the company's areas of presence, holding ecological contests and other events needed to foster an eco-responsible culture. In early 2021, the All-Russian Ecological Contest #Iammakingacleancity was held under the auspices of the project with a view to drawing the attention of the younger generation to the issues of ecological development of society and the nation and to the need for developing a sustainable approach to managing natural resources. More than five thousand school students from 53 regions of Russia took part in the contest.
Fostering eco-culture is the most important element of building a sustainable society. This should be done continuously, starting at preschool age and then continuing throughout one’s lifetime. It is important to make sure that ecological education includes not only theoretical knowledge, which is certainly important, but also practical skills. This is the only way that man can become aware of the impact of human activities for the nature and understand how to reduce their negative impact on the environment. This is what our project is largely aimed at, Anna Chigarina, Head of the Recycling Workshop project, said.