LYNN — Plastic Recycled, a New Hampshire-based company that repurposes plastic waste to be used for building materials, is one step closer to a partnership with the city after the Education and Environmental Affairs Council on Tuesday voted to move the proposal to a Public Revenue Committee meeting in two weeks.
Holding a multi-colored plastic flowering pot, founder Nathan Gray stood before the council and pointed to a blue and yellow bench in the corner of the room, offering to take the city’s plastic waste, educate local school children on recycling, and sell the plastic back to the city for $499 in the form of highly-durable park benches.
Gray also presented his “Eco Brick,” a plastic water bottle filled tightly with plastic wrappers, bottle caps, and other forms of waste, explaining that through these small plastic bottles, the city could help the environment and repurpose waste for a variety of practical and artistic purposes.
“The project that we are heading up is all about recycling plastic waste, stopping single-use plastic waste from getting into the environment and into our waste streams. We’re using different methods to reduce the amount of plastic waste that goes into these areas, the ocean and rivers, and environment and such and turning them into 100 percent recycled plastic products,” Gray said. “It’s just an innovative way of rethinking about our plastic waste and creating value around it. Since the Eco brick, we’ve since moved into larger-scale products and larger scale production to make a bigger impact on the single-use plastic waste.”
Gray said that through his proposed partnership with Lynn, he plans to get school children involved with the process by going to Elementary Schools and introducing them to his plastic recycling program.
“The education is where we go into schools and talk to children about the global plastic waste crisis. We’ve gone to many schools across Massachusetts and New Hampshire and we have different sets of programs from just a simple interactive presentation,” Gray said. “For instance, these bowls are made out of the caps and single-use plastic. We take them and put succulents in them and we have the kids come and use and keep and take home that product so that’s a great way to get the kids involved.”
In an interview, Gray said that after three years in business, Plastic Recycled has graduated from small plastic recycling programs into a larger repurposing business. He said that environmentally conscious communities are responsible for propelling his work.
“It started off with Eco Bricks with just a simple, yet effective, solution to the plastic waste crisis making buildable water bottles to use in housing and as a building material. Since then, we’ve gotten into larger collections, collecting the bottle caps and lids and turning them into additional building products that are made into benches and made into recycling bins and raised planting beds, fences, really whatever you could use a piece of lumber for,” Gray said. “It’s just really been driven by the community and the desire to get the plastic waste out of the [environmental] waste stream.”
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected]
