Plastic Recycling - A Tiny Lesson.

Because tiny steps... 

I watched this new Brothers Make video on layering plastic bags to make useful sheets for constructing with, and offered them one of my brainfarts for free: Laminators.

My Gift To The Recycling Community:

I've often wondered what you can do with plastic bags. So far I've slipped a piece of cardboard inside a tee shirt, laid it down and ironed it, then cut out random pieces of plastic bags (and a few strands of PLA filament for the sake of the experiment) laid them on the tee, then put my silicon sheet on top and thoroughly ironed it at as hot a setting as I could get my old iron to go. The patterns on the plastic bags transfer easily onto the shirt but it's a bit thicker and more inflexible than screen printing, and as to the PLA - don't do that unless you want to build stiffeners into the material to make it drape funny and stick out awkwardly... 

But the real test I want to do (and which is why that video started me thinking again) is that I've wanted to try pressing plastic bags onto each other and onto fabric and what-have-you by making a sandwich with baking paper, plastic or some base fabric, then a few more layers of plastic bags and then another baking paper layer - and feeding that through a common or garden variety office laminator. And we have a small A4 laminator but I'm not game to use it in case the thicker materials break the roller mechanism. Because we use that laminator a fair bit. So I'm kind of stuck until things change.

At A4 width it's also not much use for teeshirts or wider projects, although it's well to point out that with a bit of organisation and laying out of materials you could probably make a metres-long strip, the roller moves quite slowly. But if I could afford to waste money on an A3 laminator that I can also pull apart and adjust the thickness on, I'd definitely have a go at that.

Disclaimer: I do not recommend pulling apart a mains-powered machine unless you're a qualified electrical trades-or-repair-person. It's simply not worth the risk. I'll just point out that I was an electronics hobbyist since I was 11, worked casual at a TV / electronics repair shop by age 13, and then with electrical tradespeople by age 15. I don't recall the number of times I've "arced" myself up and luckily lived to learn to be better next time. And I haven't zapped myself in 30+ years now, and keep up to date with all that electrical technology. (I was going to say I kept - "current" - with it but see what a bad pun I (almost) spared you there?)

But definitely - if you want to experiment with laminating, give it a go - use the Mastodon chat (under the banner above) and let me know how it went. If you want to help me buy a reasonable laminating machine that I can use, there's a link in the banner to donate, too. Or just subscribe to my once-a-week-on-a-Friday newsletter, link also in the banner.

Now To My Tiny Project:

I may not be able to do plastic/fabric or plastic/plastic composites yet, but I do have a cheap toasted sandwich maker press thingie . . .

I use that sandwich press to squish old bottle caps into sheets (a task that takes about 15-20 minutes, use a silicon BBQ sheet, lay plastic pieces on, another silicon sheet, close the lid, turn on, wait 20 minutes, turn off, wait 20 - 40 minutes more for it to cool entirely, Big Reveal, all together - wow...) and I don't always wash or clean the caps because it's difficult without a dedicated wash machine, but I still get good enough results. 

And yes it has my DNA embedded on  it in the form

of hair, but I'll have to sand it smooth anyway, so...

That above took about 40-45 white bottle caps and two black ones for contrast, did this a few hours ago. I let the white/black layer bond under heat for 15 minutes and let it cool for 45, then added the top layer of colours. These bottle caps were split around the rim and flattened, a few of the retaining rings and a bathroom curtain ring in non-white colours were sprinkled on, and now I have a wobbly placard thingy.

You really should wash your plastics and dry them thoroughly but I didn't, and you can see the dust and stuff. This is also only a 2mm-3mm thick sheet, quite strong though because I used all PP plastic for this. You can tell on larger pieces of PP plastic that have enough surface area that they can have a stamp on the because its recycling number is 5 (A "5" inside the triangle, and if you're lucky, "PP" directly under the triangle.) but bottle caps often don't get a stamp, although they really should have them. 

I knew because most bottle caps are made from either PP (hard and crunchy) or HDPE (recycle number 2 and with HDPE under the triangle; and it's soft and bendable) with very little variation. Also made from PP: - plant nursery pots usually are, and many hard plastic tubs that some food pastes etc come packaged in, quite often the tops of aerosol spray cans and spray paint cans, and some hair and beauty product containers. 

Here's a table of plastic recycle symbols to help you figure out what plastics you may have.

Disclaimer: I've seen some newer lids that have a thin layer of some rubbery plastic inside them to form a seal, don't use those as two plastics rarely melt together very well. Also, I'm only 90% sure that all lids are PP or HDPE, so you may need to check yours. HDPE and PP can be processed in small quantities like I do without air filtration but other plastics can give off toxic fumes and need air hoods and filters and preferably also wearing a respirator or organics filtering mask.

I'll be sanding this flat on both sides and then finding a use for it. At this stage a front panel for an electronics project is my best guess, but a more plainly-coloured background with contrasting numbers glued / fused / 3D printed on make for a novel and interesting house number, or if you frame a thin sheet it would make a nice abstract art piece and be quite unique. Also with a fretsaw you could cut out some nice keytags, or use a bit more heat to press it into a plant-pot-shaped mold and make small unique plant pots. 

You can make these kinds of projects with a sandwich press that's got flat surfaces top and bottom, or in a baking tray lined with a teflon sheet in one of those table-top ovens, which would also let you drape your finished sheets over to make those plant pots. 

But whatever you use for processing plastic - don't ever use them for food again as there are so many compounds in plastic that'll give you a very regrettable time just from inhaling them let alone ingesting them in your cookies or toasties.

Personally I'd like to one day make a mini-sheetpress similar to the Precious Plastic sheetpress but that takes wherewithal and wherewithal I have not got - because no-one wants to donate. I'd like to make a large sheetpress and cooling press just like the PreshPlast machines, and a plastic shredder and injection machine just like theirs too - but you know, not many people will sponsor a AUD$150k set of machines and the space to operate them so that a bunch of community organisations can recycle plastics and make some money for their organisations either - and yet that's what it'll take to stop the billions of tons of plastic going to landfill and the air and the water and the animals and fishes and turtles and birds and plants and insects and us. Hundreds and hundreds of small community organisations setting up to recycle plastics and textiles and metals and so forth. 

So I'll keep plugging away making tiny projects and publicising them and sometimes even selling one instead of giving it away, but I'll never achieve any of those bigger things unless YOU start sharing these posts, and discussing stuff like this, emailing your politicians to make more grants to be made available for small non-profit / charity recycling projects - the big corporations have not only caused this global disaster, they've also spectacularly failed to take responsibility or action which a bunch of people working from home have proved are not only possible but actually simple and effective. You'd think they didn't give a shit wouldn't you? And you'd be right. They don't. As long as the profits roll in. 

I think that's a thing we should all think about and then act on...