What does it take to recycle plastic at home?

[Xist]

Somewhere I read the comment that in Japan there are countertop boxes people can use to break down plastic into petroleum, but I cannot find anything about that.

Everyone says "Don't use plastic! It clogs our waterways and landfills and we end up ingesting it!"
"Glass isn't cost-effective to recycle because Americans are lazy!"
"Glass isn't cost-effective to recycle! Just throw it away!"

I know where to recycle it. I have a bin of bottles and jars in the garage and I will recycle them the next time I see a client in the next town (and have time), but supposedly everyone else intentionally buys goods in heavier and bulkier containers, resulting in heavier and bulkier trash?

I never hear of garbagemen being cut by glass, while plastic breaks down into microplastics, and then plants, animals, and people ingest them.

A roommate said "Sometimes recycling takes more resources" so we should never recycle?!

My roommates were lazy.

I posted about that, but just found another thread where RedPoint said that Americans are lazy.

We properly recycle, but if our neighbors use their recycling bin as another garbage can, the city may take everything to the dump.

The city may do that anyway.

Plastic recycling isn't necessarily cost-effective to recycle anymore because China isn't buying it anymore--it caused too many health problems even for them!

Some smaller countries are trying to take over, but I cannot imagine that they can handle as much as China did, nor do I expect them to continue forever.

So, as I asked, what does it take to recycle plastic at home?

[freebeard]

Look for this symbol and sort it out. The rest can be ground up and used for a paving amendment or something.

The HDPE softens at 375°. When it's the consistency of bubble gum (wear gloves) in can be formed, extruded, machined, drilled & tapped, etc. Press molds work well, or a rolling pin on side rails.

Best answer find a [best] use for it.

https://www.lifewire.com › diy-filaments-for-your-3d-printer-2245
How to Make DIY Filament for Your 3D Printer
18 Jan 2022Use a Filament Extruder to Make Your Own Filament Along with a filament extruder, you'll need heavy-duty scissors and a rubber mallet. The exact process depends on the extruder you use. Here's a look at the general method. Gather and collect your failed prints and sort these by color.

https://hackaday.com › 2020 › 07 › 17 › make-your-own-filament
Make Your Own Filament | Hackaday
a filament extruder using a high torque induction motor and gearbox that was locally sourced. He argues that shipping heavy gear around would make a similar extruder commercially unattractive. He...

https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=Eecbdb0bQWQ
How to Make free & easy filament for 3D printer at home
**** Start making your own filament maker right now ***watch these videos in order:#1 Multicolor printing :

Bott...

[Xist]

Somewhere I saw videos of people using plastic bottles as 3d printer filament. Maybe you can make something small, but incredibly useful.

Can you make enough small, but incredibly useful things to keep up with your plastic use?

We use a lot of plastic!

I thought that maybe you could 3d print an upper grill block that would look better than insulation foam, but Daox wrote: "3d printing grill blocks is totally doable, but not very practical I think." DIY: Coroplast grill block

I want to make my own phone holders, both for home and for my car.

Maybe others would want them, too.

I bought this a few months ago for $30:


It holds and charges my phone. I think that it is supposed to automatically close when I turn on the engine and open when I turn off the engine, but it doesn't always do either, and it often opens if I touch my phone, so I need to grab the buttons behind my phone, and sometimes it doesn't close.

Cool cool, let me just turn off my car really quickly.

I can close it manually, but is that likely to damage it?

Made in China, so yes.

Of course, now that I have it I keep thinking that having built-in bluetooth would be even better.

I asked a friend if any car phone holders had bluetooth and she said "Not all of them!"
"Remind me to never ask you a question again."
I only saw two car phone holders that charge and neither had bluetooth, so let me just Frankenstein some.

It doesn't charge 100% of the time, either, so not only does neither function function properly, my phone charger didn't come with a phone charger!

I ordered one for almost $30, but it is 30w, while this is only 10w, but this way I can charge my iPad at the same time, or potentially my laptop.

I wish that I had thought to grab my last phone holder from my first Camry. The next time I talked to the other guy's insurance I asked about it and they said they already hauled the car to Phoenix.

I didn't approve that!

I cannot find it now, but it had a design like this:


Weird. It looks like my first attachment timed out even though I have another Ecomodder page refreshing automatically to keep me logged in.

It still shows up, but was no longer attached, so I reattached it.

Anyway, the weight of my phone on my old holder caused the sides to come in, so it didn't need buttons and servos, and I miss it.

I posted about a company that will print circuits, so maybe I could go that route, but I certainly wouldn't want to start with anything so complex.

[Xist]

That looks like what I found, although I still think The King of Random had the best video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRy2sD_k57g

I just wanted to break up my post because it was getting long.

The way he does it one could do this with just a razor blade and a 2x2.

I watched a few videos with more complicated setups, although they wound the filament onto spools--although one guy immediately unwound it.

The thing is, I don't need to tell you how lightweight bottles are, but I am drinking some soda right now--I poured two 2L bottles into my 1 gallon Nalgene bottle with some electrolytes in the bottom.

How much does an empty 2L bottle weigh, an ounce or two?
Google gives varying answers around 40-50g.
DDG says 0.000198 freebeards.

Hey freebeard, I need you to find 5,000 2L bottles and a big balance.
Do you know where to find a teeter totter?

My cat acid scale says 45g so we will go with that.

How much does a car phone mount weigh?

I don't have any idea and I doubt that anyone weighs theirs.

I am not weighing mine, it isn't the one that I want!

If I made phone mounts and charged a small amount of profit on top of the cost to run a 3d printer--plus a small amount to recover the cost to buy a 3d printer I would be scavenging plastic for free.

For the planet?!

Phone holders are an existing market and people regularly pay $10-20 for them, so that seems like a good option.

However, I keep thinking that the best use for recycled plastic would be actual building blocks, and once I had enough I could build another shed!

Hey!

Hey!

Could I print clear coroplast?!

I don't know that 12"x12" sheets would be ideal, but it would be easy to make them snap together.

No, I will not 3d-print a dome!

Bad freebeard!

Bad!

You are also obsessed with hemp, man!

What about that?!

I see stuff about 3d printing with it, but I am not seeing much that seems easily-explained.

I found this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5jEdQeTrB0

So, companies are making 3d filament from hemp. I see posts about 3d printing hempcrete, but how the heck do you do that?!

We have discussed hempcrete building blocks before and that would be an interesting thing to DIY--and explain, but I already have a discussion about that.

[redpoint5]

I throw away most plastic. Easy to rinse out, larger plastic containers that are recyclable I will recycle.

Metal is important to recycle. I'm indifferent about cardboard, but since I get so much of it I need to use the larger recycle bin for that instead of throw it away. I recycle glass mainly to keep shards out of the landfill, and the fact that it never breaks down into something useful like methane.

[freebeard]

Hey freebeard, I need you to find 5,000 2L bottles and a big balance.
Do you know where to find a teeter totter?

I'm not your gopher.

No, I will not 3d-print a dome!

Bad freebeard!

Bad!

You are also obsessed with hemp, man!

What about that?!

You'd want to only print the fiddly bits.

The 'obsession' is to obfuscate my real obsession: dancing girls

Printable hempcrete is delivered as a paste instead of a filament.

[Xist]

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:

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

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:

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.

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?

[Xist]

The time stamp on #1 is 2:28 before my last post, so I have probably spent 3 hours posting, on top of watching 10-20 videos.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I throw away most plastic. Easy to rinse out, larger plastic containers that are recyclable I will recycle.

Metal is important to recycle. I'm indifferent about cardboard, but since I get so much of it I need to use the larger recycle bin for that instead of throw it away. I recycle glass mainly to keep shards out of the landfill, and the fact that it never breaks down into something useful like methane.

I want to recycle everything, but it just isn't feasible, and if I wanted to recycle plastic into something useful, I really think that it would make more sense to pay schoolkids $5-10 an hour to rinse and dry plastic containers for an hour or two a day.

If I lived in southern Arizona I could probably drive a van across the border and pay adults $5-10 an hour.

Originally Posted by freebeard

I'm not your gopher.

I found my original comment more entertaining than your response.

You can do better.

Originally Posted by freebeard

You'd want to only print the fiddly bits.

The 'obsession' is to obfuscate my real obsession: dancing girls

Printable hempcrete is delivered as a paste instead of a filament.

According to Pakistani-managed AI, that video can be summarized as

This is a music video transcript. The lyrics mention the desire and uncertainty of a relationship. The singer questions if their partner wants them or if they have changed their mind. However, the chorus reassures the listener not to worry and asks if they want the singer.

freebeard oh freebeard, the most freebeardly freebeard to ever freebeard, please tell me what to do with this information, for I am ignorant of the way of the freebeard, and I fear that I have consumed too much diet cola!

[freebeard]

Not a simulpost, off by one minute.

Of course, the question is: How much is my time worth.

Penny for your thoughts?

I don't know, but how long have I spent posting about recycling plastic at home?

The outer bound for this thread is 2.5 hours.

The time was well spent following up the suggestion I made at #2.

Compare https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rolling+clay&ia=web. Potters use slab and coil construction techniques that transfer to HDPE.

The thing about domes is you can cover an acre with toothpicks. So if you make four or five ...or six forms you could make hexagonal jigsaw puzzle pieces of any managable size.

[freebeard]

According to Pakistani-managed AI, that video can be summarized as

I thought one should never trust a Pakistani [front for the AI Overlords]. Here's your proof, the lyrics are incidental.

freebeard oh freebeard,

Oh, please. The video was offered up to me on the Youtube home page, because I've trained it on a diet of Mother's Basement and Terran Space Academy.