Plastic recycling centers

Project: Plastic recycling centers

Transformations:	Cutting, Melting
Tools:	Wrenches, Soldering irons, Plastic shredders
Parts:	Frames, Bolts, Nuts, Heaters, Controllers

Introduction

Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the material into useful products. Its major goals are reducing dependence on landfill, conversing resources and protecting the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Challenges

The recycling of plastic faces numerous technical and economic hurdles, causing it to lag behind the recycling rates of materials like aluminium, glass and paper. In particular, there are many different types of plastic and these need to be segregate from one another prior to recycling as they give a poor quality product if mixed. The most common form of recycling, in which plastic re-melted and reformed into new items, usually results in polymer degradation at a chemical level, so that quality cannot be maintained. More advanced technologies which may mitigate this suffer from high capital costs and are more energy-hungry.

Approaches

• plastic shredder v0.1

PETbot pultrusion 3D printer filament maker

• injection molder v0.1

• Press v0.1
• https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1468596
• https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:677144

Development targets

• Re-frame in gridbeam
• Ensure that each machine is supported by the Universal Controller
• Large-format coro, fresnel lens, multifocal concentrating solar fresnel, etc press

References

• infinitely recyclable plastic
• https://preciousplastic.com/en/
• https://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/lib/different-types-of-plastic.htm
• Plastic scanner
• Wikipedia: Plastic recycling
• Filabot: recycling setup bundle
• RobotDigg: Extrusion n Injection
• Hackaday: The Metabolizer
• Inari manual plastic injection molding center
• Polyformer recycling machine