A Start-Up in Indonesia is Turning Low-Value Plastics into Fossil Fuels

A plastic recycling start-up in Indonesia is working to tackle the growing issue of low-value plastics that have become a big issue for the recycling industry.

Tridi Oasis, a plastic recycling start up in Jakarta, Indonesia, is taking aim at low-value plastics, such as drinking straws, single-use shopping bags, and plastic wraps or films typically used in online shopping and food delivery packages. These plastics pose a significant issue for the recycling industry because they have near-zero value which makes recycling them too expensive.

“Some [plastics] are high in value, and some are low in value or even negative,” Tridi Oasis founder Dian Kurniawati said in a statement to The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a massive surge in these low-value plastics as online ordering of products and food delivery became a norm for a lot of individuals during self-isolations and lockdowns.

While recycling these low-value plastics isn’t cost effective normally, there has been a new developed way to recycle these plastics and make a profit, by turning them into refuse-derived fuel (RDF).

Through chemical recycling to decompose plastics materials via chemical reactions or high heat, low-value plastics can be turned into materials that can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Tridi Oasis has now launched a new initiative in collaboration with a local cement company to collect those low-value plastics to recycle them into RDF. Although, the electricity cost from RDF is higher than that of coal, which is the primary fossil fuel used in Indonesia.

Tridi Oasis is incentivizing waste collectors to help with sourcing low-value plastics for the RDF production. The company is offering coupons for foodstuffs like sugar and cooking oil to those who help with the plastic collection.

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