Tobolsk boasts new benches made of recycled plastic and containers for collecting plastic caps
28 october 2021
Tobolsk has seen containers for collecting plastic caps installed at its educational institutions and in public places. Recyclable plastic is collected as part of the Recycling Workshop, a social and environmental project supported by SIBUR's Formula for Good Deeds social investment program.
Each container can hold up to about thirty-five hundred plastic bottle caps. As the containers get filled up, the waste is sent on to a recycling plant where it is shredded into small pellets and used to manufacture new items. Recycled plastic can be used to make fabrics, films, packaging tape, bottles, insulation materials, and hospital shoe covers. This material can also be used to manufacture uniforms for soccer players and jerseys for ice hockey players, as well as raw materials for the construction and road construction industries.
There are currently fourteen locations in Tobolsk where one can dispose of their plastic caps:
1. The "Moya Territoriya" Multicenter (6/4 Krasnoarmeyskaya St.)
2. Tobolsk Industrial Institute (at 5 Higher Education Institutions’ Zone)
3. Sintez Center of Culture (52 Microdistrict 6)
4. Tobolsk Multidisciplinary Technical College (Bldg. 85, Neighborhood 10, at Alyabyev Art and Culture Center)
5. Soldatov Tobolsk Medical College. (27A Semyona Remezova St.)
6. Mendeleev Tobolsk Pedagogical Institute (58 Znamenskogo St.)
7. Kalach, Crucian Carp and Swedish Buns (31A Microdistrict 8)
8. MaDonna Cafe (66 Microdistrict 4)
9. Yunost Sports Center (54A Microdistrict 7)
10.Centralny Sports Senter (87/2 Microdistrict 4)
11.Crystal Sports Palace (145 Semyon Remezov St.)
12.Champion Swimming pool (13A Microdistrict 15)
13.Kindergarten 40 – Child Development Center (18 Microdistrict 8)
14.ZapSibNeftekhim LLC (1/1 Block 9, Vostochny Industrial District Area)
Street benches made of recycled materials were installed on the grounds of the children's Quantorium technopark where a plastic recycling workshop was opened in December 2020. Each eco-bench that closely resembles conventional wood furniture is made of 7.5 kg of recycled stretch film, 37.5 kg of recycled plastic, and 105 kg of sand. Function-wise, the benches are no different from the traditional outdoor furniture made of wood. Eco-friendly benches can last 10 years or more due to their material’s durability, and upon expiry of their useful life they can be sent for yet another round of recycling.
We started this project by creating environmental workshops where our residents can see the value of plastic waste as a resource for preserving the environment. Installing the waste-collection containers and creating the eco-benches was the second step in raising public interest in this topic. One day you collect and turn in caps and other plastic materials, and the next day you see a bench that is made with these items instead of wood, and this makes you realize that by doing this you may have helped save a tree. This is a very visible example of the contribution to protecting nature that each of us can make, Elena Belskaya, Head of ZapSibNeftekhim LLC’s Department for Government Relations and Social and Economic Projects, noted.
The Recycling Workshop is a comprehensive environmental project aimed at developing a framework for separate collection and recycling of plastic waste, as well as at helping build a lasting attitude towards recycled plastic as an important resource for manufacturing new products. It is comprised of several lines of activity including establishing recycling workshops in the regions where SIBUR operates, holding environmental contests and other events with a view to developing an eco-culture. The very first recycling workshop was opened in December 2020 in Tobolsk followed by the second one in Dzerzhinsk in April 2021. In 2021, similar workshops will open in Nizhnevartovsk and Tomsk. The workshops offer comprehensive master classes on recycling used polymers into new useful products.