As part of the massive National School of the Arts festival, the students are helping share the message of reduce, reuse and recycle plastic as well as the universal message of The Dung Beetle Project. The Dung Beetle Project is known for its work in sharing education on how we can save the planet by being more environmentally minded. Not only is The Beetle a piece of art, but it also creates fuel from plastic and we could all do better finding similar ways of helping the planet and each other.

We are sharing this message of hope that together we can do something about the epidemic of plastic pollution.

The Dung Beetle Project fires up the start of the festival day with a performance & eco-demonstration on the NSA field at 8am with another performance at 12 noon. There is no capacity limit but we do advise you to get some tickets and join the festival all day.

Even your friends will say “We want to go see the Dung Beetle” when you tell them about this great initiative.

Don’t be toxic, be awesome! If you missed the show on Wednesday 4 March or Thursday 5 March, you can still catch it on Friday 6 March.

Info on bookings here. Come join us or follow us on social media.

Date : 5 and 6 March 2020
Time : 8am and 12pm
Venue : National School of the Arts

The post The Dung Beetle Project and their epic eco-demonstration at the National School of the Arts festival appeared first on The Dung Beetle Project.

We’ve all seen the three arrows chasing each other to form a triangle imprinted on the bottom of plastic containers. That just means the product is recyclable right? Wrong! Have you ever noticed the little number inside the triangle? That tiny digit makes a massive difference. These numbers range from 1-7 and they are your key to WTP because each means something quite different from the others.

1 PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate)

This is one of the most common plastics used in consumer products. The PET symbol can be found on most water and pop bottles as well as on some packaging.

This type of plastic is the most high value recycling on Earth.  Just because it is high value does not make it easy.  PET bottles are crushed and shredded into small flakes for recycling. These flakes are reprocessed to make new PET bottles or they are turned into other types of plastic or spun into polyester fibres which are used to make various textiles. It can be very difficult to clean and to properly decontaminate waste plastic of this kind, and it requires the use of harmful chemical agents or plenty of energy to turn into something useful again.  This is a high-gas, low liquid-fuels plastic when used in our Dung Beetle, and due to its high recycling value we do not suggest gasifying it.

2 HDPE (High-density Polyethylene)

That’s what the little number two stands for. It’s what goes into the making of some milk, detergent and oil bottles, as well as many plastic toys. This stiff plastic is considered one of the safest forms of plastic.HDPE is hard-wearing and extreme heat and freezing do not break it down. That makes it the number one choice for park benches, picnic tables, waste bins etc.

HDPE is the easiest type of plastic to recycle and it’s cost-effective too, but worth only about 1/3 to recyclers as PET on the market, so although it’s easier, the numbers are not as good so often it is not recycled because of this problem. Soiled HDPE is great food for our dung beetle, and many places where HDPE is used but not recycled, our Beetle may be one of the only ways to get rid of this hard wearing number. Yum!

3 PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride)

PVC-piping is the main use for this plastic. The uses of PVC also include clear food wrapping plastic, teething rings, children’s toys, etc. This flexible plastic has been dubbed the “poison plastic”. This name comes from the fact that it contains numerous toxins that can leach out during its lifetime.

PVC products are not readily recyclable either. Though some products made from plastic of this kind can be reused, repetitive use can be even more harmful. We cannot use this plastic in our Beetle because when it is gasified, the plastic lets off highly toxic Chlorine gas that can not only be deadly if inhaled but can cause explosions! Whoa!

4 LDPE (Low-density Polyethylene)

This type of plastic can be found in shrink wraps, dry cleaner garment bags, plastic shopping bags, squeezable bottles, etc.

LDPE is considered less harmful than most other types of plastic, although it isn’t commonly recycled. When this plastic is in fact recycled it is generally used for products like plastic lumber and garbage can liners. We have a special shredder that rip this stuff up into perfect Beetle food, and since this is one of the least recycled plastics we have a solution to put it to sleep for good. Slurp!

5 PP (Polypropylene)

Polypropylene has excellent heat resistant properties. It’s lightweight, durable plastic, often serving as a barrier against moisture, grease and chemicals. You can find it as a holder of yogurt and some milk product containers.

Polypropylene is recyclable and it is usually used in brooms, bins, car parts like car interiors and bumpers, as well as climbing jackets and even sunglasses! It is considered safe to recycle this type of plastic, but the value is often too low so recyclers tend to throw it into the landfill, but our Beetle simply loves polypropylene, and we can turn it into fuels, electricity and much more! Nom Nom!.

6 PS (Polystyrene)

This is another type of plastic most people have heard about. Polystyrene has a wide variety of uses. It is lightweight and easily formed. The most common uses include Styrofoam drinking cups, take-out food containers and the peanut foam chips used when shipping to protect the contents of a box.

This type of plastic is not at all environmentally friendly as it easily breaks up into smaller pieces and gets dispersed across the environment and the beaches of our very own Earth. Carcinogens (cancer causing agents) may also be leached into food products. Although the technology to recycle polystyrene is available, we don’t know of anywhere that is currently doing it, but the Beetle it eats this nasty pollutant for breakfast lunch and dinner! Crunch!

7 Other (BPA, Polycarbonate and LEXAN)

This wide array of plastics, not covered by any of the other numbers, is primarily used in sippy cups, baby bottles, plastic food containers, etc.  The use of these types of plastic often has negative health implications because of chemical leaching occurring in these products.

When possible, it is best to avoid these plastics. They are not to be reused and cannot be recycled, but the Beetle can offer this suite of “all the rest” a noble end of life solution.  Basically the only plastic she can’t eat is PVC so when it comes to number 7, we are ready to take it out of our environment and turn it into useful fuels! Chomp!

If you would like to support the Dung Beetle in addressing our plastic dilemma, you can donate here or sign up to our newsletter for updates.

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The Dung Beetle Project has launched big plans for 2019. We’ve got the ball rolling, but we need everyone’s help to keep the momentum going and create a global change.

1.2 billion kilograms of plastic waste is littering South Africa every year. The Dung Beetle Project can process hundreds of kilograms of this waste every day and turn this trash into energy. The short term results are incredible. But the long term results are far reaching and life changing, not only to Africa, but to the world, the environment, our planet and humanity.

Watch our video to see the impact the Dung Beetle Project is having, plus learn about our goals for 2019. Sign up for our newsletter to join us on this journey and learn how everyone can help turn an enormous problem into a global solution.

The post Watch the Dung Beetle Project in action, as it turns plastic waste into energy. appeared first on The Dung Beetle Project.

Over the year we received a massive amount of machine work, equipment, knowledge and other assistance from Gov Scrap Metals, SAME Water, Allsteam Engineering, Erich Nash’s Otmar Machine Tools, and in particular his brother Werner Nash in Alrode, Johannesburg.  Thanks, everyone we really could not have done anything without you.

A year ago we had a big dream and four dedicated people who decided we would try our best to develop this latent technology and unleash it upon the world’s plastic problem.  For anyone unsure about our technology, we turn waste plastic into both liquid fuels and electrical energy.  We finished our trailer-installed art and plastic converter in April, and we debuted our sculpture clad system at the Afrika Burn festival in South Africa’s Karoo Desert.  By then we had grown into a core team of five with more than thirty volunteers.

Our sixth generation system was born in July, and we re-tooled a heavy-duty trailer in Mike Jervis’ shop south of Johannesburg in order to travel across the region with our machine, which looks creatively crafted like its poo-rolling namesake. Jervis’ shop continues to be our headquarters. Our staff come from the nearby township of Thokoza, and we have already trained four formerly jobless artisans how to manufacture and assemble our systems. We have plans to train many more.

Our core team consists of Jeffrey Barbee, Pierre Pretorius, Michael Jervis, David Terblanche, and Simon Davis, and includes Ana Alecia Lyman and Steve Blair.  We are hoping to bring on more team members soon as we rapidly expand our project over the next year.

We are also exploring possible partnerships with a number of different entities such as Durban Solid Waste, The City of Durban, The University of KwaZulu Natal, The Stellenbosch Sustainability Institute, ParCo (Mozambique), The Johannesburg Inner City Rejuvenation Project, IUCN, Oxford University, The Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade and other public and private organizations around the world.

It became clear around June that we would have to create an offshoot of the Dung Beetle Project in order to be able to continue to innovate our original hardware designs into systems that people can buy. The Dung Beetle Project is based in Alliance Earth, a not for profit foundation which derives its status through an educational remit.  As such it will continue to drive forward its global outreach, and keep sharing this exciting technology with the world through road-shows highlighting all sorts of environmentally sustainable solutions to current challenges.

ScarabTech is our first offshoot. This international company will have machines available for sale in 2019, and will also be expanding into the USA in Colorado, Mozambique and globally to drive sales of full systems, kits, and support.

We are currently finalizing the downloadable open-source plans for our basic plastic to power machine so that the wider public can benefit from the usefulness of our technology.  The plans will be free to inventors through our website  Everyone can download them, but all development from anyone who downloads the plans will be shared, so that globally people innovate together and learn from one another helping to scale this technology as fast as possible in order to get as much plastic out of our environment as possible.

Commercial companies will have to license our creative commons technology or pay royalty fees to ScarabTech. It will manage the business of making plastic-to-energy accessible but also profitable enough to pay for jobs created, great talent engaged, and further research and development so that our small scale systems can have a real global impact.

The last weekend in October The Dung Beetle Project came to Durban’s Umgeni River mouth.  The river is one of the biggest suppliers of plastic polluting the West Indian Ocean. Stopping plastic from entering the ocean is one of our most important goals, so it was great to have our first public event in such a prominent place. We partnered with ZigZag Surf Magazine, as well as Tuffy, The City of Durban, The Green Hub and the University of KwaZulu Natal to do a beach cleanup. We also had talks and green entertainment powered by plastic from the beach using our Dung Beetle.

So in only one year, the Dung Beetle Project has gone from a dream to an art project, to a fully operating system that is cleaning up our global plastic problem and using that energy to drive change.  Go beetles!

We are looking for more support to drive forward our message that many people’s needs can be powered by plastic. We can accept direct contributions to Alliance Earth here and if you want to donate directly to our fundraiser for the educational road shows, you can find that link here.

At some point in the future, ScarabTech will be looking for investors, and we will keep you all informed here when that time comes.  You are included in this newsletter because you sent us a note and asked to be.  It is you all that have supported and lifted us up over the last year and we really appreciate the input and outpouring of positive comments and kind words.

The post In just a year the Dung Beetle Project has gone from a dream to a shining reality. appeared first on The Dung Beetle Project.

This event is taking place this Saturday the 27th of October from 8am till 1pm. It is hosted on the Blue Lagoon lawns at the Umgeni River mouth in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal and will include:

The Dung Beetle art stage and demo unit on display at the race finish line;

A beach cleanup led by ZigZag  surf magazine from 8 am until 9h30 am;

A demo of the transformative Dung Beetle Technology from 10 am – turning the collected waste plastic into power;

Plus, an environmental discussion on recycling and changing perceptions around the value of waste  with our NGO partners;

There will be a Green Market, Organic Food stalls, walks and runs along Green Trail on the Umgeni river.

All are welcome! For more information contact the team on info@dungbeetle.africa. This is the first of a number of outreach events planned by the Dung Beetle Project  and Alliance Earth. Watch this space for future events!

The post Join The Dung Beetle Project in a beach cleanup event at the Umgeni River mouth and see first-hand how this machine turns plastic to fuel. appeared first on The Dung Beetle Project.