Plastic Is Precious?

Many of us don’t think about what happens to our plastics after we recycle them, especially not on a busy high school campus. However, Mr. Peek’s 4th period class is working behind the scenes to turn the plastic of Inspire students into fun trinkets available to us. 

Precious Plastics started out as a machine built by Dave Hakkens in the Netherlands as part of his studies in 2012. The purpose of his machine is to upcycle plastic by shredding it and mold it into items such as sunglasses and clocks. In 2016, version 2 of the recycling machines were released to the world, by 2018, version 3 was released and Precious Plastics was recognized globally by 2020. Its existence is to reduce plastic waste by adapting to whatever change is necessary, from recycling to waste-free lifestyles.

Here at Inspire, Precious Plastics class periods are full of work. Every week, plastic is collected from the little blue recycling bins that are marked for Precious Plastics, and is brought back to the shipping container that the class operates out of, where it is washed or has labels removed if needed, and is sorted into one of three categories. One team will be responsible for taking that plastic, shredding it, and putting it into storage bins. An injection team puts these plastic bits into an injecting machine that heats up the plastic and pushes it into a mold. A third team works with the extruding machine, to attempt to get it to successfully extrude, or force out, that plastic. There was even a team working to rewire the motor of a shredding machine and are also working on building machines from scratch, one or two machines should be built by the end of the school year.

Precious Plastics started at Inspire around 2019. Environmental Club was watching a video about the foundation, and many students took interest in making it happen. The club started fundraising to start up, but then COVID-19 struck. Through the struggle one student’s garage was used to start the process with something as simple as a carabiner. Eventually, the idea spread and the Four Foundation donated to help grow the program.

I asked a few students about why they joined Precious Plastics, but one response stuck out to me. When I asked AJ Hung (11) says,  “Honestly, it was supposed to be something I was reaching out of my safety circle to be in, like, going out of my comfort zone, which I try and do often, but the experience has taught me a lot of things, especially mostly about recycling, but also about how important like communication is, and being with others and working together as a team, and not just trying to do everything by yourself, which I think definitely could be applied to recycling.” 

Not only are students learning about recycling and its importance but they are also finding a sense of community and purpose. Some are even using Precious Plastics as a new opportunity to try something new that they maybe are comfortable with.

Mr. Peek and many students feel like Precious Plastics doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves. I talked to Mr. Peek about if he feels like more people should know and support the program, he shared that “Yeah, we want everybody. We want more people to know about it, and unfortunately, they don’t.” There is also concern that there will not be enough students that sign up for Precious Plastics and next year the program will not be able to continue at the new campus.

Precious Plastics is a wonderful program we should be very proud of and grateful for. We can help support it, even if we aren’t in the class, by donating plastic to a specific marked Precious Plastic bin. If you write your name on it, you even earn credit to buy things in the marketplace such as jewelry, carabiners, coasters, and hopefully soon, sunglasses.