IN Australian cities rainwater tanks are being promoted as environmentally friendly with generous government subsidies available for their purchase and installation. But according to Don Matthew, a gardener who is passionate about the environment, they are a looming pollution problem:
“Ask anyone in the business of manufacturing or selling poly tanks and they will tell you without fail they can be recycled. The industry’s ARMA (Association of Rotatational Moulders Australasia) website www.watertanks.org.au says ” Can poly tanks be recycled? Yes, they can be completely recycled”. Most Australians would accept this as being correct and so feel environmentally comfortable about purchasing a poly tank. Unfortunately, this appears to be far from the truth. I believe the industry have no idea how UV-degraded (spent) tanks are going to be recycled.
Over the past months I have been directing questions to various sections of the industry to find out what they would tell an environmentally concerned member of the public about recycling spent poly tanks. The results have been interesting and have all been documented on the weblog http://thegreataustralianpolytankdebate.blogspot.com . I then followed this up with further questions and asked for evidence to back up their claims. The result: one big deafening silence. Their recycling claims appear to be simply marketing tools to take advantage of the current water crisis and make us all feel environmentally comfortable with poly tanks.
For the moment I am just asking questions and recording results on the weblog. Next year I would like to see a national awareness campaign launched to raise this issue with the Australian public. It needs to be brought out into the open for discussion and debate. The industry is just burying their head in the sand and while no-one asks questions they will continue to sell their tanks and perpetrate what I believe is misleading information about recycling. In the not-too-distant-future millions of spent tanks will be lying around. If the recycling issue is not resolved I can see us heading for a major environmental pollution problem.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Seems like a beat up.
PS just got another 10,000 litre tank installed this week. The house is now 100% self sufficient in water.
From reading his evidence, I can’t see that anything has been given to him that backs his claims. The plastic from the tanks can be recycled, but the quality of the tanks is so good they will last about 40 years.
The only issue with recycling is that products for human consumption must use new, not recycled materials. That is just for health/sanitation reasons. There are plenty of other products that can still use the plastic.
Would it not be wonderful, if this really one of our major problems? We would have mothing at all to worry about, except twits that rush into print.
I’ve always felt that plastic was a dodgy material for tank construction on a “forever” basis.
Being brought up in the bush to fix any problem, the most sophicticated workshop can’t fix dozy plastic.
The more traditional tanks of earth, clay, concrete or steel can be made to last forever with a stitch in time.
My solution for “recycling” plastic would be to either fibreglass over the whole tank while it was still sound or attach reinforcing to the inside and cement render it, both of which jobs would cost more than a new tank.
So maybe it’s better to build a shade house over it while new.
Often the longest way round is the sweetest way home.
SJT: “The only issue with recycling is that products for human consumption must use new, not recycled materials.”
True enough for “fresh” even that degrades with repeated recycling, but here we are talking about plastics that has deteriorated with age can that be recycled? I’m not so sure.
Before spending a lot of your hard earned shekels on water tanks it might pay to read this report. “The cost-effectiveness of rainwater tanks in urban Australia”, by Marsden Jacob Associates (448KB). Waterlines Report No 1 – March 2007, downloadable here.
http://www.nwc.gov.au/www/html/605-the-cost-effectiveness-of-rainwater-tanks-in-urban-australia.asp
In many cases scheme water is still cheaper. If Govts would act rationally about supplying water, it is far cheaper to pay them to do the job.
Back in the 60s, in another life, when I was a bright eyed, young engineer, I was responsible for the commercialisation of electro chrome plating of plastic, [ABS at that time] in Oz. Due to the then nature of our industry, with a lot of expensive hand finishing of metal parts, we led the world, in the establishment of this process.
I was recently pleased to see some of this stuff, still in service. All the equivalent metal gear, [brass, & die cast muck] has long since corroded past usefulness.
Yes the brass is gone, as water gets in through pinholes in the chrome, & dezinkification sets up. BUT, sunlight, [or the ultravoilet in the sunlight] can’t get through the same pinholes, & the plastic bit has a much longer service period, as its only enemy, in service, is that UV.
Drongo talks sense, as usual, but goes a bit too far, with his shade house. You don’t need a full shade house to protect your poly tank, all you need is to stop the UV. Poly is hard to paint, it’s difficult to get good adhesion , but it can be done. With suitable paint applied, & the UV eliminated, no one can give you an estimate of your tank’s life. With no suitable accelerating ageing test available, no one has lived long enough to run the required tests.
A properly made, installed & uv protected poly tank, has a life too long to think about. My guess is that the recyclable tag was applied by some salesman, who did not know enough about the product he was selling, to please some greenie costomer, & was then perpetuated
A fimiliay story with many salesmen, the IPCC comes to mind.
Hasbeen,
Yeah, coat a paint, very functional, why didn’t I think of that.
Please don’t answer that.
Nonsense like this doesn’t help people who are genuinely interested in the environment deal with the problems of the future. Plastics are recycled every day! This guy needs to get a life or focus on the real problems in the environment.
Unfortunately this is true. We take away poly tanks on a regular basis when they fail. We have to take them to land fill because there is nowhere in SE Queensland to recycle them. It may be POSSIBLE to recycle but I’d be very glad to know where!