davehakkens

warrior

19/10/2015 at 14:44

Hi @ani0555. Nice you made a video, don’t be harsh. The more you make the better they will get! Sounds like an interesting project you’re starting. Keeps us posted on the proces! Would love to see some information/pictures about your visits to the waste management!

ani0555

starter

19/10/2015 at 18:53

These are images from Renosyd. It’s a joint public-private organization that collects and manages the all waste from the cities of Skanderborg and Odder.
Individuals and institutions can also personally bring their waste at a drive through and deposit it at the appropriate station.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/m01PCQ6.jpg[/img]
Pure Plastic waste is divided into 3 major categories.
1. Large plastic furniture that is usually roto or injection moulded. With no metal parts and joints of course.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/P5vCenV.jpg[/img]

2. Plastic sheets and films of all thicknesses. These are compressed and bundled to make transport easier.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/QjMWN9d.jpg[/img]

3. Roto/Blow moulded bottles of different densities of PE. (HDPE, LDPE, PET etc). This stack was emptied the day I visited so no picture. 

If possible, the waste is sold to companies for further sorting and recycling, usually in Germany. The rest is incinerated.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/oCK2eJj.jpg[/img]

What is nice about the place is that it has a newly established design team. They also have an in-house upcycling workshop that works with local artists and provides traineeship for migrant workers. They also run workshops at schools.
..and in typical Danish fashion, the strategy is discussed with the use of LEGO. 
[img]http://i.imgur.com/WLz14wD.jpg[/img]

More to follow…….

ani0555

starter

19/10/2015 at 19:08

Ahh…having trouble with the images. Attempt 2.

ani0555

starter

19/10/2015 at 19:13

attempt3

davehakkens

warrior

28/10/2015 at 21:34

Thanks for sharing the images! Always interesting to see how it’s done in other places. Would be great if you could share if you visit other places as well

They also have an in-house upcycling workshop that works with local artists and provides traineeship for migrant workers

That’s pretty awesome! You rarely see that.

ani0555

starter

25/12/2015 at 15:14

Hello folks,
Sorry for the long absence. Post the Christmas holidays I will be working on the aforementioned project fulltime.
Before the holidays I made a few more trips in my region. I will be working in partnership with a museum called the Økolariet, on the project. Applications for a grant have begun.
I also visited Aage Vestergaard Larsen a/s, whom I believe are the largest plastic recycling plant in Denmark. Here are some images from my visit there.
…and again I must apologize for the low quality. I lost my precious camera on my way to the factory 
More to follow very, very soon. Merry Christmas!

ani0555

starter

25/12/2015 at 15:17

AVL buy collected plastic waste from collection agencies. Though a large part of what they deal in is production waste such as pipes, unwoven fabrics and packaging.
They mostly purchase pre-sorted polyolefins family plastics such as PP, HDPE and LDPE They currently have cleaning and sorting facilities for the three. They also buy pre sorted PS.

They use a floatation method for sorting. I had overlooked this technique in my research previously but I have a new found fascination for it now.

The process is as follows.
Shred > Wash > Separate > Dry > Pelletize > Test > Sell

There is an in-house lab that tests the plastic quality and creates a database of every batch of pellets made in the past few years.

ani0555

starter

25/12/2015 at 16:15

One more very interesting image. This one also from a waste collection agency that conducts workshops about waste management for kids. Can you guess what this contraption is trying to demonstrate?

davehakkens

warrior

27/12/2015 at 01:59

no idea, but very curious!

davehakkens

warrior

27/12/2015 at 02:01

thanks for sharing this here @ani0555! Very interesting to see your visits and read about them!

ani0555

starter

27/12/2015 at 14:30

Its a model that shows how all house-hold waste is sorted. When school children or new clients visit they are given a demonstration.
Its a manual mini version of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcHs48En7P4
Complete with magnets and a foot powered air pump.

ani0555

starter

22/03/2016 at 14:22

Its been a while since I last gave the forum an update. I have been keeping myself rather busy.
So to cut to the chase, Through my research I discovered the following.

Each type of plastic has a specific density. Using a series of liquids of corresponding densities I would be able to seperate the 6 common types of plastic.

ani0555

starter

22/03/2016 at 14:48

Now the question was how to make this sorting process a fun, enjoyable activity. To do so I imagined the experience you can see in conceptual video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5db3J_HD_qo

I’d advise you to turn up the volume a bit.

I am at the stage where I am building mock-ups with various configurations and trying to identify which one would best fit the experience.

https://goo.gl/photos/36PUqBkx4cevhjr18

https://goo.gl/photos/n3K7xz8o1WMNWaLV7

https://goo.gl/photos/tnsm8incXDXmeftDA

Your inputs would be most welcomed.

chrismcgowen-com

starter

10/05/2016 at 08:27

Love your thinking of the multiple trays pulling off sorted materials – elegant. I don’t understand the need for the hot air and can see more problems than benifits. Is it to move the material along to the next stage?

ani0555

starter

01/06/2016 at 19:25

Hey @chrismcgowen-com ,
Its all trial and error at the moment. The hot air gun was to make sure that any liquid on the surface of the shreds evaporates and does not alter the density of the liquid in the next tank.
But if you have any suggestions I would love to get your input on it.

I have now conducted a few test sessions with students. I’ll upload make the images available to the community asap.

ani0555

starter

01/06/2016 at 19:29

Here are some images of a workshop I conducted with the tanks at a local adult education school. Please feel free to ask me any questions.
I am also looking to develop simple mechanisms to move the plastics between tanks. I’ll post some examples asap, nevertheless I would love your input as well.

ani0555

starter

01/06/2016 at 19:32

some more

ani0555

starter

01/06/2016 at 19:38

last set

davehakkens

warrior

02/06/2016 at 05:07

Cool! you made it! Looks good. So how did it work, is it a good way to seperate plastic?

ani0555

starter

06/06/2016 at 08:53

Hey @davehakkens ,
Its been a while. Yep, finally put made one. 🙂
It works fine as a educational tool. The students enjoyed themselves and so did the chemistry teachers. The archimedes screw wasn’t good enough in the end but I do have another option planned.
At the moment the sorted plastic isn’t pure enough for an application like say the extrusion machine as we has discussed in Feb. But should be fine for injection moulding.
As an academic project its deadline is past. But as a personal project I am still hoping to tweak the experience a bit further. I may also take a leaf from your book and make a tutorial on how it can be made.

Here are some videos of mechanisms I tested. I now want to add gears and a drivetrain to the second option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6J2rH3M3Nc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfGS_vnedXc

imarco

new

02/09/2018 at 18:49

Hey! I was thinking and reading all your posts…  I just conceived this primitive Plastic sorting system. Ok it’s very rough, but what I wanted to do is give an alternative (or ispiring it) to the Archimede’s Screw problem. Hope this will bring you a new perspective.

P.s: the cube tank in the second picture is one of the main tank shown in the first picture. The second picture shows only the way you can collect floating plastic and bring them to the second tank. Still looking how to automatize this.

ani0555

starter

07/09/2018 at 17:08

Hey Marco,

Thanks for taking a look through my work and for sharing your thoughts. Yes, I do believe what you have drawn can be achieved through a little ingenuity. That valve/spout combo you need may be tricky to achieve but I’d encourage you to go ahead and create mock-ups.

I eventually replaced the Archimedes Screw with a combination of bottle-brushes and a belt drive. I can’t remember if I shared that on the forum, but I will share it here again once I can find the photos. (*edit images added :-))

Think hard about why you wish to automatize the process. These tanks work as a fun learning tool about plastics and density. But they will not be able to consistently sort out a large quantity of mixed plastic.

Here to help

-Ani 🙂

suzereuse

starter

02/06/2019 at 19:50

The best document on float sorting plastic I found is a middle-school lesson plan.
http://www.wakegov.com/recycling/recycle/ftb/Documents/Lesson%20Plans/Plastics_Identification_Rev.pdf

I work on a small scale in Haitian villages. I want to show people low cost ways to use the local “garbage.” and a shredder is expensive and electricity is intermittent. So instead, I show people how to sort unshredded plastic.  We collect lots of bottle caps and small things.

Some things that work for me:
1. do water float first.
2. for things that sink, instead of glycerin (expensive, hard to get) I use 2 cups vinegar with 1/8 cup salt.  The PS floats and the PET and PVC sink.
3. By the way, ABS has a specific gravity very close to PS, so both float in my salty vinegar. Very little ABS in Haiti, so doesn’t matter to me. But am interested in what would separate them.
4. we don’t use the pvc and PET.
5. use veg oil to separate the PP (it floats).
6. I also teach them that bottle caps wth hinges are always PP because it is good at repetitive bending.
7. wash the hdpe and ldpe to get the oil off, then float in alcohol. I use isopropyl alcohol 92%, with equal parts water, to make alcohol 46%.
8. I also reject the bottle caps that have obvious liners – clearly 2 kinds of plastic, so we won’t use them.
9. The difficulty is that the alcohol is stinky, and evaporates, so you get things that neither float nor sink.
10. My answer is 2 bottle caps, one I know is ldpe, and one I know is hdpe.  I toss them in, one floats, the other sinks. They are my markers.  I toss in handfuls of plastic and most are clear floaters or sinkers. After a while, stuff begins to neither sink nor float, so I add a little alcohol, making sure that my two markers stay in place.
11. Obviously not a fast production method. Bur for people with time and few resources, it works.

andyn

warrior

03/06/2019 at 09:54

@suzereuse

“6. I also teach them that bottle caps wth hinges are always PP because it is good at repetitive bending.”

This is called a ‘living hinge’ and while PP is usually regarded as the best material for this, it’s no guarantee the item is PP. HDPE is often used for living hinges, (particularly in larger items like blow molded tool cases), even PET can be used.

donald

warrior

03/06/2019 at 11:26

(just linking some topics for the AIs and those interested)

Also see

Sorting LDPE and PP apart

for a more current discussion on (part) of the topic.

suzereuse

starter

10/06/2019 at 17:59

thanks Andy – for reminder that testing is IMPORTANT. so annoying that so many widely used consumer products can be made from several different plastics.

ani0555

starter

15/06/2019 at 21:40

@suzereuse
Thanks for sharing. It is very interesting, the work that you are doing. I unfortunately am not able to view the link you have shared.
I would love to see pictures sometime. The ‘marker’ method is something I too had to use on occasion to tell LDPE & HDPE apart.

ABS is is relatively newly invented plastic. The 1-6 numbers on the plastic items do not include ABS. ABS goes into category 7. Most post-consumer category 7 plastics are sadly not recycled.