Let's pin 3d-printing hempcrete.
Plastic sheds are PVC or HDPE.
Printing panels would be curious. If I made one that is a 10' cube I would need 600 foot-square panels, but how thick would they need to be to support their own weight?
This is less than 8' tall and weighs 355 pounds, but it says the frame is wood, although it is clearly metal:
WoodBridge Plus 10 ft. x 10 ft. Vinyl Outdoor Garden Storage Shed
However, you know me, I want everything!
I want something that is flame-resistant and has insulation!
Rigid foam board?
How do I make it flame-resistant?
I could coat it.
Okay. In theory I could make a $1,500 shed by turning a couple thousand 2L bottles into filament, 3d printing 600 panels, using a wooden or metal frame, insulation, and fire-resistance coating.
I am sure that I would also need UV treatment that actually works, unlike the $60 bottle I used.
Growing my own hemp sounds better and better.
Phone holders, then?
I found these guys and they really like plastic milk caps:
Google doesn't want me to know how much milk caps weigh! [wraps head in tin foil]
Mom had one milk cap by the sink and a total of 5 half-gallon milk jugs in the refrigerator.
She buys one each week whether or not I use any.
Whether or not I have used any in the past 5 weeks.
She and my brother are lactose-intolerant.
Six milk caps weigh 13 grams, so I would need 454 milk caps for one pound.
They say they can use anything with this logo on it:
Good Housekeeping says:
Quote:
HDPE (high-density polyethylene) is a versatile plastic with many uses, especially when it comes to packaging. It carries low risk of leaching and is readily recyclable into many types of goods.
Milk jugs; juice bottles; bleach, detergent and other household cleaner bottles; shampoo bottles; some trash bags and shopping bags; motor oil bottles; butter and yogurt tubs; and cereal box liners.
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Exactly What Every Plastic Recycling Symbol Really Means
They really like melting down milk jugs, so that makes sense.
I tried to dry out the cleanest empty milk jug and a paper towel didn't do much.
I put some rice in there, but there was more milk residue than I realized (the plastic is whitish!) so I cut it open, which is what they do, and it took altogether too much water, paper towels, and time to clean one half-gallon milk jug, which only weighed 46g, but I need 9.86 of those per pound (with the cap.
When I clean things I tend to wash them into a bucket and later use that grey water, so I can recover that, and I wouldn't need paper towels if I hung up pieces of plastic bottles on clothes lines?!
Or I could leave them upside-down on a dish rack.
Those Australian brothers use a can, a dowel, and tons of bottle caps to make a mallet. They often use a panini press and and a toaster oven, both from a thrift store, and either
Teflon baking sheets (3/$11 on Amazon) or
silicone ones (2/$19) and
silicone oven gloves ($8 on Amazon)
I don't know what size presses they used, but they looked wider than the cheaper ones that I am seeing. I don't know how much Goodwill would charge for a press like this
Cuisinart that Walmart sells for $58, and Google says it uses 1,800w.
WhatBuy says that electricity costs 13¢ per kilowatt hour, so if I spent an hour melting milk caps it would cost 23.4¢.
WhatBuy also says "The cheapest rate can be found in North Dakota, at $0.1 per kWh."
I don't remember how much I paid for the toaster oven I bought the Alaskans, but I doubt it was more than $10-20, and of course, Google says that the
Black & Decker toaster oven available at Walmart for $40, with more features than just toasting, which would be irrelevant for maintaining plastic melted, is also 1,800w, so almost 50¢ per hour.
The Australians say that at these low heats HDPE doesn't release fumes.
Of course, the question is: How much is my time worth.
I don't know, but how long have I spent posting about recycling plastic at home?