Winelands Plastics & Imports supplies complete recycling plant for CRDC’s RESIN8™ project
Boland recycler transitions to equipment supply
WINELANDS Plastics & Imports of Worcester in the Western Cape has completed its biggest job to date, that of the supply of a complete recycling line to CRDC South Africa (Centre for Regenerative Design & Collaboration) which is processing substantial volumes of co-mingled plastic waste (resins 1-7) into an eco-aggregate called RESIN8.
The CRDC SA plant in Blackheath near Cape Town can process up to 28 tons a day, which translates to a substantial 610 tons a month. The plant includes conveying, granulating/shredding and metal detection stages up to extrusion which is then followed by a second granulation process to render the extruded hybrid mineral polymer into granules for blending into concrete.
Founded in 2018, CRDC Global’s mission is to create appreciating value from the world’s plastic waste by converting it into RESIN8, an eco-aggregate that improves concrete. They currently have opperations in Costa Rica, the USA, South Africa, Britain, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and Samoa. CRDC South Africa was registered in 2020 and is in the final stages of setting up the first RESIN8 plant in Africa and only the third in the world.
Due to the open cell structure of the RESIN8 and the addition of mineral additives, RESIN8 has a much better mechanical and chemical bonding with the cement paste. This ensures that concrete products with RESIN8 maintain their strenghth, shape and size while it has various environmental benefits such as diverting high volumes of plastic waste from landfill.
The CRDC SA project has been a major undertaking for Louis Stemmet of Winelands, which is based in the Boland town of Worcester. Having worked in mining (extraction of gypsum), farming and construction (while on a stint in the USA, where he nearly settled) in a varied early career, Stemmet saw an opportunity to collect used plastic pipe from farms in the Boland region of the Western Cape in the late 1990s. The venture evolved into a transport operation, with Stemmet doing most of the driving himself. First collected used pipe was supplied to a number of recyclers in CapeTown, but that soon transitioned to the granulation of the pipe material; which was logical as substantially more material could be supplied per load. Winelands became a key supplier of granulated material to a number of the Cape’s top recyclers in the process.
Winelands subsequently set up a full recycling plant in the industrial area of Worcester where pipe and other plastic materials from the surrounding farms could be reprocessed. The business has grown steadily since.
Using equipment yourself is the surest way to assess performance and within a few years Stemmet had a good grasp of what performed best, which led directly to the next step: which was the supply of recycling equipment to the plastic recycling sector.
Upon realizing that recycling equipment could be sourced quite readily in the Far East, this boytjie van die Boland travelled to the Far East and began to source equipment himself. When you’re using the equipment yourself, the ability to know what works best is enhanced … or you very soon find out. This is exactly what happened with Stemmet during the course of a number of trips to China and he soon became adept at sourcing high-efficiecy equipment.
CRDC contacted Winelands in 2021 after being referred by another recycler who knows Winelands Plastics & Imports well.
