Plastic Scrap Recycling

Plastic is made from a non-renewable resource, and it is generally non-biodegradable or the biodegradation process is very slow.  This means that plastic litter is most often the unwelcome type of litter and will be visible for a very long time. Some types of plastic waste will sit in garbage dumps sites for centuries without degrading.

So with that in mind, environmental awareness is at an all time high. People are taking steps to minimize the impact we have on the planet. Recycling plays a big part in this, because its so easy to integrate into our daily lives. There are also many cases where large amounts of material need to be recycled. 

Plastic scrap recycling is the methodology of processing recoverable plastic scrap waste and reprocessing it into something useful - often radically different from the form it was originally found in.  Usually, plastic isn't recovered the same way that results in the same type of original plastic, but results in recycled plastics often not able to be recycled again. For example, melted  soda pop bottles and can then be recycled into plastic tables or chairs. An almost infinite range of plastic products can be manufactured in this manner.   

Some of the recycling techniques are:

Extrusion -  the product is usually in the form of a continuous ‘tube’ of plastic like piping or hose 

Injection Moulding -  the plastic polymer emerges through a nozzle into a split mould. The amount of polymer being squeezed out is carefully monitored usually by moving the screw forward in the hot barrel.

Blow moulding - a spiral screw pushes the plasticised polymer through a die. A short little piece of tube, or ‘parison’ is then put in between a split die -which is the last shape of the product - and compressed air is utilized to open up the parison to the point that it fills the mold and finalizes its end shape.

Film blowing -   process requires pushing compressed air into a thin tube of polymer to bring it up to the point where it results in a thin film tube. An end can then be closed and the sack or bag is created.