I've tried to figure out how to start and from what I could tell, locally this project is dead. Because of that, starting a workshop even a small one, would be cost intensive and with a low chance of becoming sustainable. According to the PP academy, the most successful workshops focus on one part of the supply chain and optimize that. That seems very reasonable and corresponds with my experience in problem solving. It also means that without a certain size of active community, the chance of success is close to zero.
Because of that and considering that for the moment this will be a spare time project for me. I think that my primary focus should be in community building. The first step is laying out who else is close by and has interest or are currently active in recycling or cleaning plastic or other sustainability projects.
[x] Contact existing local pins
[x] Zikit
Tai Katok - Closed shop. Gave me a telephone number of the guy who bought the equipment from him. Sent him a WA message. See Arbel later on.
[x] Pink Cow
This is a community coffee shop in south of Tel Aviv. I think it was closed during Covid. Sent a message through IG but no reply yet.
[x] PLSTLV - Itay Shigger Zur
Itay is the owner of the Precious Plastic Tel Aviv FB page. Sent a message to the page and him personally. No updates yet.
[x] מבואות ים - Arbel
Arbel is a youth village (כפר נוער) instructor and had bought from Tai his machines and setup a workshop in one of the village's buildings. They have a functioning shredder and a sheet press and a bunch of students that help recycle and turn plastics to products. They work with Lior Amsterdam to create a product that will create some income. We are scheduled to meet at their workshop next week (14/04).
[ ] Contact Beach Cleaners
[ ] Call To Action post on social media
Precious Plastic is a chain of supply.
Collection → Sorting → Washing → Shredding → Raw Product → Product.
The whole thing starts with discarded plastic. The supply is very high but the quality is low.
On the other hand, there is virtually zero demand to recycled plastic products. People are more concerned with price and quality of the product than what and how it was produced.
The supply chain could be broken to small individual pieces but that would mean that there need to exist multiple workshops and in Israel there is only one educational workshop.
If we could gather around 20 to 30 people in the community we could maybe break down the supply chain to small manageable tasks that people can do as part time until the chain becomes viable.
Another key point is creating demand on the product side. I feel like creating raw products (sheets, bricks, rods, beams) and stocking up on those would be beneficial to introducing the material to regular businesses.