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Precious Plastic Sartrouville
- This topic has 49 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by
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Hello everyone; first of all sorry for the re-post of some of the photos you will see on this thread; indeed i have been poking here & there putting some photos & designs, but hadn’t created a “real” thread yet; Here it goes !
It has now been a bit more than a month now that my crew (i own a business in events organization since many years) and myself have started thinking hard on what we could do with plastic waste. The first axe we explored was the plastic differenciation. We emptied all the trashbags that were ready to be picked up and sorted the plastic trash by type in seperated boxes (which are made out of PS…)
(EDIT : Photo uploads NOT WORKING) :((
(EDIT EDIT : Photo uploads WORKS AGAIN, YAAAY !! )
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and here is a little update of our planters’ (made out of recycled plastic obviously :p) production 😀
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a couple weeks went by and we continued ou tests !
we reinforced the hexa, 2/3 hexa & triangle moulds with a metal sheet and have build a new (& reinforced) version of our compression chamber (also added a little element which helps us perfectly & easily center the mould in the compression system)
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photos of upgraded moulds & products output (we mainly use LDPE at the moment)
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last but not least (for today :p)
we started testing fusing different LDPE products together, using a heat gun
Results are VERY satisfying !!
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We had the pleasure to greet Adèle from PreciousPlastic Shanghai couple days ago; a lot of intel sharing; and she gave us the inspiration for the making of this stool !
The wooden legs are just “planted” in the melted plastic as soon as taken out of the oven, then let to solidify by cooling. Unmoulding is super easy because of the dish being teflon-coated and polyethylene warping quite while cooling down.
(Plastic used is polyethylene; LDPE pallet wrap & HDPE bottle caps)
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We then found a hallow square tube; we used it as a mould and process is following;
Put in teflon coated dish to melt.
Once melted, take dish out (work with triple layer gloves) and make a ball out of the melted plastic;
Twist it, it will start getting pulled by gravity quite quickly;
Aim for the mould and fill it
Put aside to cool/solidify
Mould being cold + warping of LDPE make unmoulding VERY easy
Used the result product as a foot for our stool; technique to connect different elements is only fusion by heat, with a heatgun.
100%recycled LDPE
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Good day! Im from the Philippines and I’am currently doing my thesis project same as yours. Thank you for publishing your work it would help me a lot in doing my own compression machine. By any chance, have you done or do you have an Experimental Design for the tests you’ve done so far? Thanks!
Hello everyone !
Sorry for the long time since i have given you guys an update on what’s going on on our side ^^
So after having experimented manual extrusion we realized that we could explore a bit the couloring side recycling.
The main plastic product we use is pallet wrap, which is LDPE and can be transparent or black. The transparency is due to lack of pigmentation (and thickness being very small), it becomes white once melted (and therefore much more thick as when it was just a sheet)
Understanding that principle we started adding bottle caps to the process. Once all is melted, you can “easily”(need heat-resistant gloves though) mix it with your hands. The more you will mix and the more the colour will be homogeneously blended. The more you add coloured caps (of the same colour), the darker your color will be, the less the brighter. You can also mix colours as you would with paint. I managed to create a nice homogeneous purple mixing red and blue together ! 😀
The first problem you may encouter while trying out that process is that the plastic will stick to your gloves. You should wait a little bit for it too cool down (right before mixing) so that the most exterior layers of the melted plastic is already hardened and therefore not sticky.
Then lastly with help of Clemence which i met through PP map (thank uuu!) we tried out silicone moulds;
Why silicone ? Isn’t it going to melt ? No ! If you read the PP Manual in the kit, you should know that there are 2 big families of plastics; thermoplastics (which melt at right temperature), and thermosets which can only take shape once. The temperature of melted plastic won’t affect it ! So idea is the following :
Create an item (sculpture, 3Dprint) or just any type of objects :p
Take the impression of it with silicone
Create a casing
Ready to use as a mould !
Here is a little rhino we made 😀
Our extrusion machine is almost ready, just need to find someone to help out with the last electrical & electronics parts 🙁
Cheers !
ps : i am sorry for the name of the original post, i didn’t know at that time that other french projects were launched; so it’s PP Sartrouville 😀
u can check us out of FB or insta
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Very inspirational topic.
I think everybody starting (including me) would do well to start working without the machines like you did, if only to get to know the materials (plastics) better.
You should rename this topic ‘So you want to start recycling plastics’ 😉
It’s basically a tutorial with some very usefull tips and information.
Thank you for sharing.
hey @donald !
Thanks for your feedback ! i was not aware there were other french initiatives when i created the post, i would have changed the name of the topic to pp-sartrouville which is the name of my workshop, but i can’t cuz name of topic links to the url (?)
Indeed, most of the research and experiments were done without PP machines, i think it is very important to understand how different plastics “work” in order to utilize the PP machines at their best (and optionnally understand how to not brake the machines ie: extrusion machine’s motor being turned on before the plastic in the “temp zone” is not melted :p)
Will try to continue this as a journal to open new techniques and possibilities through plastic recycling !
Cheers !
I also like the idea of an (almost) no investment way to start.
Safety gear and safety instruction, starters tutorial, (old) oven and go go go.
I’m still gathering information, so i don’t have much to tell yet, but I will also start a ‘journal’ soon, starting with a tutorial on how and why to keep a journal on PP (link t.b.a. 🙂 )
The forum has a very limited structure, which would just mean we should use it in a smarter way!
I wonder: “i would have changed the name of the topic… …but i can’t cuz name of topic links to the url”. This is indeed a good observation as the links might stop working, but I will test and check. You CAN change the name, so links SHOULD keep working. I think only the name changes, not the link, but let’s not find out I’m wrong by experimenting on an active topic 😉
Hello everyone,
Here is a little update to explain to you guys a new technique we discovered.
The output product is hollow tube made out of LDPE pallet wrap.
Needed material :
– 1 plancha
– heat protection gloves
– LDPE Pallet wrap (seperated into thin layers)
– a cylindric metal bar (cut it so that it’s length is smaller than the plancha length)
– 1 heatgun (optionnal)
Process :
– Put plancha to heat (not maximum temperature as it will more likely degrade the LDPE)
– Add 1 layer of LDPE ( try cutting the LDPE so it fits the plancha’s inner dimensions)
– once 1rst layer is melted, use gloves to reagglomerate into a little ball and put it aside on the plancha
– put a 2nd layer and repeat reagglomeration, adding it with the 1rst layer
– put a 3rd layer and repeat reagglomeration, adding it with the 1rst & 2nd layers.
– put the “ball” in the middle of the plancha and start rolling it with your hands in order for the “ball” to gain more and more length.
– Once you have a “more or less” cylinder, reposition it in the middle of the plancha.
– Use the metal cylindric bar to flatten (the more you can) the molten plastic as if it was a rolling pin
– As you will continue rolling the metal bar; it’s temperature will rise and the molten plastic will start to stick to the bar.
– You want to continue that process until all the molten plastic is around the metal bar. If there are gaps to be filled, you can always add a bit of LDPE to melt and fill thesaid gaps with the same rolling technique.
Unmoulding.
the step is quite an issue, because LDPE warps around the metal bar when colling down. There are 2 straightforward possibilites to unmould the hollow tube.
– The easiest way is to cut a straight line through the hollow tube and “open” it up slightly so it detaches itself from the bar. This then requires to use a heatgun to refuse the tube.
– Another way to do it (only works if the metal tube you used is hollow too) is to use the heatgun, and make the heat go through the metal hollow bar. This will heat up the plastic which is in contact with the metal bar. You then only need a lot of strength to pull it out. Careful though, if you heat it too much, it’s not only the ID of the plastic hollow tube which will melt but ALL the plastic tube, meaning you won’t be able to pulling without wrecking everything :p
i hope you can guess what was our process for the last photo 🙂
Cheers !
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Hi,
It is very amazing.
Where are you located? Do you have a contact email or website?
Thanks & keep your innovation up and up!
M.K
I’m very Impress by your work and all the developpement you’ve made. So i’m Curious to see your workshop.
Can we meet if i come to Paris? for a day or maybe two to discuss with you before launching the project in Metz?
It’ll be very helpfull
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