An investigation into sustainability of plastic recycling and manufacturing industries

Abstract

As a result of increased urbanization and rural urban migration, there’s a high population density in the urban areas of Uganda and with it an increased rate of exchanging good and services in these urban areas. Most of the goods and services being exchanged during these transactions involve packaging for aesthetical reasons, proper storage, safeguarding, containment, easy transportation and other reasons, with the biggest percentage of these packaging materials being non –biodegradable in nature that’s to say plastic containers and polythene bags, which makes them harmful to the environment if not properly disposed or managed as waste materials, this means that either these materials must be recycled or reused to prevent them from ending up in the environment as disposed materials, whereas in the urban areas of Uganda today, these waste materials are evident on streets, in drainage channels, water bodies, neighborhoods as poorly disposed waste materials, hence posing a wide range of negative impacts to the environment in which we leave (environmental pollution) and climate change to the world at large. The findings of this study indicate that current recycling industries are not fully designed to selfsustain, therefore basing on the findings from this study, the conclusion is that industrial buildings need improvement in terms of designing to allow for easy maintenance and sustainability in developing countries. This study has provided design strategies and recommendations that can be integrated by designers into present and future designs to achieve this goal, these recommendations majorly are aiming at the maximization of natural resources in industrial design.