Two engineering students have designed and launched an in-house recycling facility at the University of Alberta, diverting difficult-to-sort plastic from landfills.
Their goal is to demonstrate how institutions such as schools, universities and hospitals can recycle their own plastic waste, converting it into bricks, tiles, climbing accessories and other useful products.
"It's an example of moving recycling infrastructure directly to institutions, so it can occur before plastic is disorganized, dirty and unsorted," says Jacob Damant, a fifth-year biomedical engineering student and co-founder of Level 7 Plastics along with business partner Connor Povoledo, also in fifth-year biomedical engineering.
