… And then came the Corona virus, which struck particularly hard in Peru. Apart from all the other miserable effects, the epidemic has delayed the implementation of the plastic recycling project for months. In July conditions were in place to pick up where we left off. We now hope that the first recycled corner boards from Peru will roll off the assembly lines in the spring of 2021. Once the factory is running at full capacity there will be enough capacity to recycle not only the plastic from our own producers, but from the whole banana sector in Peru. Running two shifts, 960.000 corner boards per year can then be produced, enough for 12.000 containers of bananas – which is the current export volume. Quick math: the amount of used plastic per hectare is about enough to make the number of corner boards needed to export the bananas from that same hectare. It pleases us immensely to say that this makes a piece of circular economy a reality.

Like greedy cooks in the kitchen, we are now scouring around for more recyclable ingredients! We will be looking into other plastics, like plastic bottles, for raw material. If that works, the municipality of Sullana could initiate waste separation and the resulting corner boards could be sold on to other export sectors in northern Peru. There is definitely a market for this product: approximately 200 companies are active in the production and export of delicate products such as mango, grapes, avocado, blueberries, limes and sweet potato.

We see a lot of opportunity here for other products as well: recycled plastic can be put to excellent use in planks, poles for fences and other building materials.