Plastics recycling part II

In the previous article, I had mentioned how to start a plastics recycling business. Of course, it was about the basics of collection and segregation of waste plastics and grinding them in to usable plastics chips. Since consumer durables accumulate quite an amount of dirt, it is impossible to recycle them as it is. The easiest way to use them without having to spend any further is washing them. Washing of plastics chips should be done with due care. Using detergents or soap will burn a hole in your pocket. The best thing to clean the plastics chips is using caustic soda. Caustic soda is a powerful cleaner that can blow away any dirt in the plastics chips.

However, caustic soda is highly corrosive material and proper handling should be taken care of. While small quantities of plastics chips can be manually washed, washing machines designed for the specific purpose are available in the market. Tons and tons of plastics chips can be washed in a day’s time if you use one. Once the plastics chips are washed you need to dry them in the sun. Drying the wet plastics chips in the sun is the cheapest way to get rid of humidity in the material.

 

If you are planning to use the cleaned plastics chips for production purposes, you need to pre heat them for effective use. Beware humidity in plastics chips can create high pressure in the barrel of the moulding machines and can result in explosion. Both electric heaters and mechanically heating machines are available in the market. You need to ensure that the plastics chips are hot while they are being mixed with the virgin material during production process.