Plastic has been widely adopted by the global industry as the most common and adaptable material for marketing their products. Current levels of plastic usage and disposal is one of the biggest environmental challenge that we have to deal with. Collecting and Recycling plastic is one of the most important actions currently used to meet this challenge, but it represents one of the most demanding areas in the plastics industry today. A major percentage of recycled plastic produced each year is used to manufacture disposable packaging items or other short-lived items that are discarded within a year or so. This clearly means that our current use of plastics is not sustainable. In addition, because of the durability of the polymers involved, large amounts of discarded end-of-life plastics are accumulating as debris in landfills and in natural habitats worldwide [1]. Energy efficient plastic recycling process involves a complex system of machines and new manufacturing practices. This paper discusses a promising environmental friendly solution for reducing pollution by recycling plastic bottles. The process of recovering waste plastic and reprocessing into useful products would be implemented in three stages: A) Set up and organize a system for collecting plastics used for water and soda bottles. b) Design and manufacture production line for automatically processing plastic bottles to make plastic ribbon/wire of various sizes. c) Use the plastic ribbon/wire to manufacture prototypes of useful artifacts and products like table, chair, roofing material, decorations, etc. The project has both economic and social value. On the economical side, this will save money by minimizing all expenditure for waste processing related to destroying the plastic waste; the second important contribution of the project is the significant impact on employment creation especially in rural areas; lastly, the recycled plastic is used to make new plastic products with reasonable price for low-income families. On the Social side, this will improve environmental conditions for life; reduce landfill waste; prevent disease-spreading due to recycling plastic; eliminate contamination from burning and melting plastic material and increase public awareness of environmental protection for benefit of humanity. A prototype of the project designed and manufactured in Duy Tan University, Vietnam for cutting bottles into ribbon/wire and connecting them continuously is complete. We will present a pilot test result of our approach to use the plastic ribbon/wire to make new and useful products. A Progressive sustainable economic model of Entrepreneurship Partnership is presented for the developing economies. © 2018 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, Inc. (PICMET).
View source
