A furniture warehouse has installed a recycling machine which could see polystyrene packaging being converted into furniture and sold alongside the tables and chairs it once protected.
Prestige Furniture, of Battle Road, Heathfield, has installed two machines as part of its recycling drive: a plastics bailer and a polystyrene compactor.
At first, managing director Rob Ash and office manager Graham Good assumed the benefit would come from the saving in landfill charges. They anticipate cutting their bill by 90 per cent. In the four months since the machines were installed, they have saved 10 skips of plastic and 20 skips of polystyrene from landfill, at £80 a time.
The £80 they are paid per tonne for the brickettes is of less interest. 'It takes an awful lot of brickettes to make a tonne,' Mr Ash pointed out. Now they are pursuing an even more intriguing possibility – that of making furniture from the material the compacted polystyrene is converted into.
The 'brickettes' are sent to a company in South Wales, compacted further and mixed with 10 per cent recycled rubber. The resulting mix looks like wood, is 100 per cent recycled and 100 per cent recycleable. Even the sawdust can be collected for recycling.
Mr Ash said that until now recycled polystyrene had been of negligible value as nothing could be done with it. This latest development could change all that. At the launch on Tuesday, Teignbridge recycling czar Cllr Gordon Hook said: 'It is a great story and has great potential. If this can just take off it will be an amazing plus.'
Mr Ash said the project was in the early stages. The wood substitute is being tested by the Furniture Industry Research Association for flammability, UV stability and strength. Meanwhile, Prestige is working on designs for garden tables, which Mr Ash hopes will provide an ethical substitute for products made by tropical hardwoods from dubious sources. It could be used for non-rotting garden decking as well as having dozens of other applications.
The danger, said Mr Ash, is that the South Wales plant will not be able to get its hands on enough polystyrene to make the conversion economic. 'We're keen to encourage other businesses to bring their polystyrene to us in order to reduce the amount going into landfill and also to get a bit of a contribution going to buy a bigger, more efficient machine,' he said. The plan is to train up staff from participating businesses to feed the machines. At £45 a quarter, it will present a saving to any company sending more than three skips to landfill a year. Prestige hopes to trade up to a bigger, more efficient model . Any businesses wanting to find out more can contact Prestige on [email protected]">[email protected].