How To Recycle HDPE Plastic (High Density Polyethylene) - a simple method
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Here's a tutorial on a simple method to recycle HDPE plastic (milk bottles, bottle tops, etc) into a strong, tough solid material that's great for craft and engineering projects.
All of this can be done on a small scale, using only domestic-level technology.
Take a look here on the Atomic Shrimp website for more detail on this material and what can be done with it:
atomicshrimp.co...
![Yailin La Mas Viral, @kreizyk.official - Dale 2 (Remix) [Video Oficial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JaYHBzgqz94/mqdefault.jpg)
Hands up if you're here in 2023, learning new skills from Atomic Shrimp a decade ago!
here in 2024
nearly 10 years later and this is the material being used in british army helmets. very versatile and strong material. its also considerably lighter than its equivalent rating of steel/ceramic body armour plates, typically steel NIJ III plates are around 11 lbs, ceramics are around 6lbs whereas HDPE is usually 3lbs. insanely light and very strong.
Sat through a boring materials science class in mechanical engineering and never thought of such a thing. cool!
Laundry detergent jugs are a great source of colorful HDPE
How do you get the labels off? Some are impossible to remove.
@@anglertightlines2756 Some are heat fixed on, you just cut around them.
wow, i actually learned something from this video. i now find myself going around my house checking everything plastic for the triangle with a two! thank you.
2
Me 2
This idea is lovely for decorative tiles for the kitchen. It might clean well
Reusable shopping bags sold in the supermarkets are made from recycled HDPE milk jugs.
People in the comments going "what better way is there to cut them up?", "what would be more efficient at heating?"
Congratulations, you're on your way to (re-)invent large scale recycling plants XD
Yeah, they are all solved problems at a larger scale than this
I use the bandsaw to cut up all my HDPE plastic. It's faster and easier to cut. Plus it's way more fun too, as you can collect the offcut and melt it very easily.
I LOVE THIS ...a thousand possibilities ...think fishing gear, lures ect ... omg all kind of plastic fittings ....
Thank you for the fishing gear ideas. My boys will dig it!!
I'm going to use it to make knife handles and sheaths this ts awsome
Thanks for the inspiration and knowledge sharing to get me started. What a brilliant material, becoming a bit of an obsession now. I have made bowls, fixed a fridge door and re-made handles for my torx drive tool now. Brilliant.
This is a fantastic idea. Watching this video has made me to decide on using this material to make roofing tiles for the house i am building out of all natural and recycled materials. Thanks!!!!
Kitty and unicorn I wood iWeb out coo
I ila sme to pu t out Sed to cavern for th Vera da protect from the sun
Not uv resistant, will break down in a short period and start to crack
An episode of Grand Designs from the UK actually showcased roofing tiles made just like this. Although the tiles were black. It was amazing and we decided to do the same thing. Too much plastic in our lives as it is, may as well recycle it.
timlad5 I did not see grand designs, but I am sure that if HDPE was used that uv stabiliser was added to the mix. Not sure it could be done at the temp in this example. Black does not mean UV stabilised although industrial produced recycled product will likely be black.
DONT USE FOR ROOFING KITTY
I've been binging your channel and its kind of amazing to see you reply to comments on videos that you posted well over 8 or 9 years ago. A very unique RUclipsr, I'm really starting to like you.
I have several years of HDPE all kinds of colors saved up. Thanks for reminding me to make some cool stuff with it! Thanks for sharing!
Gr8 idea, hopefully a plantpot making company will see the potential in this and we could buy their recycled muticoloured plantpots and gardening tools..I for one would enjoy the bright muticoloured design's and it's the sign we are helping the environment too.👍😀
maybe someone here could start their own etsy page with that idea
Bad idea. . .
Hdpe degrades in the sun and will pollute your garden
@@user-tr2dh4xx6u would be better to be able to mold it into other house hold uses
@@OhMegamanky would still eventually end up in a landfill, the energy required on small scale operations outweigh the benefit from recycling such little material. Theres a reason why we dont try to recycle it
@@user-tr2dh4xx6u I agree that it still ends up in a landfill. Have you looked at recycle bot too though? What do you think of it?
My dad turns pens on a lathe and recently the recycling is not being collected so, this is great I can recycle the plastic myself and make dad blanks to turn pens. 👍
It's nearly 10 years later but this is still a useful video. I like the nuts to give the plates the right height! Cheers 😀👍
Fantastic! Love your enterprise, creativity, enthusiasm and skill! You have inspired me to give this a go with my students at my school as part of a STEM project...... awesome job "AtomicShrimp," huge kudos!
This is far better than my current method of throwing a pile of inch square chunks into a toaster oven and having it burn and stick to the tin. Thanks, I'll be using this method from here on out
Love anyway to recycle what hurts the enviroment for useful things. Amazing ideas and I'm now going to see what ideas I can come up with to use this idea in my home
This is very educational. That finish product can be made into various items from flower vase to clothes hanger to knife handle to a non leathal weapon such as plastic dagger. Endless possibilities!
I think a very hot clothing iron over aluminium foil can be used to fuse the Polyethylene
pieces together use the food grill for intended purpose, this was my thought while watching the video.
I like this method of melting, most other people use a mini oven, but the good thing about this is that it applies pressure at the same time, It would be good if you could rig up some metal hooks onto metal chain (because of the heat) down to some bungee cords or springs secured at the floor, this way you could put the hooks on and it would keep applying force and save time. next project should be a HDPE shredder :-)
....or you could use the life hack that uses a craft knife blade and washers and 2 screws to make a long plastic cord in a matter of seconds...
The pressure does help to make a really solid end product with fewer voids and bubbles than other methods - also, the toaster is just the right temperature to melt the plastic without burning it
I am so happy I stumbled across your video. Have you discovered, or thought of, any way to melt the plastic on a larger scale? Such as boards for shelving or fencing, poles, etc? Please keep sharing your ingenious ideas and methods!!!
Oh! the bowl is really pretty! On a recent trip to the beach i was struck by how many plastic water bottle tops were mixed into the sea weed and drift wood. I am looking for projects to make useful and decorative items out of water bottle tops. Your video and blog are really helpful! Especially love the bike pedals to rotate the meat grinder to shred the plastic idea! Thanks!
Oh great! I get through tons of milk and am always looking for ways to reuse the bottles! Thanks.
Only yesterday I watched your video the first time. And today I watched it again and again and ag.......
After that I read all the comments. Some were very constructive, to the point. And you answered to all the questions.
Now and the next days I´ll watch your other videos on hdpe and I´ll visit your web-site. One day I´ll try this (I already looked around if we have some hdpe bottles or so and the answer is yes. Making the hdpe bottles will take some time. And I need to find a way to "melt" the hdpe. I do not have a toaster (yet) Maybe I´ll try another method. As long as I do not burn (overheat) the material I can try over and over till I´m satisfied. Thanks for sharing the video.
i am going to try and make a kayak for fishing with what you have demonstrated here. Feeling a bit optimistic but i think it's worth a try and costs essentially nothing beats paying $600 for a kayak. winning :)
This is absolutely incredible!! Cant wait to tell my friends about this :)
Nice job mate. Screw the recycling, I'll be keeping my plastic from now on.
You can use an old blender to chop it up too. Saw that on another channel.
I’m loving this channel atm. I started with scam baiting & now I’m adding this to my “shit to do later” playlist.
My sandwich toaster looks similar to yours, is there any way to test its temperature though?
Yes, test your sandwich toaster with a thermometer.
Try a cook's oven thermometer
You can use a no-contact temp gun. I have one similar to this: Infrared Ther mometer Digital Laser Surface Temperature Gun www.amazon.com/dp/B00QYX6F5G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_D4abEbE9Q2G7E
It was a lloonngg slow process, but the overall finale was awesome... who knew? I can see lots of uses for this DIY ! Thanks
awe coool.
Im gonna make a milk bottle complete with lid.
Or a margarine tub.
douche
@@macswanton9622 🤣🤣😜
Haha . Twxt
Very cool! They make counter tops like this too. You could make tiles too. Great video!
As much as I like recycling, the chopping and cutting is a full time job
Do it while bing watching a netflix series.... ?
2much for my hands! I like someone suggest, blender to cut up. Still time consuming using a lot electricity to make !?!
@@lanajantz2240 Watch DaveHakkens RUclips Channel (Precious Plastics)
Thank you for your accurate explanation. At last someone who cares about precise melting temperture! 190º C degrees, isn't it? Subtitles says 180 C but i've heard 190 C
Awesome. Thank you for teaching us how to do this. I'm trying to make handles for lock picks that I'm going to be making out of 1095 High Carbon Steel Feeler Gauges. (+1 : 660)
Ive tried this tech. and it is great I could only find a small cooker wich messures 11" x 5" but have gotten some great results so far and after reading your other page and trying some of my own ways of working this stuff
Im hooked Iv used an old Clothes Iron and a couple metal pans got a nice disk Have made several thicknesses My best one so far is a board 5/8" thick by 5" wide by 11" long and it is real strong I read about your boat Idea and wantted to offer this
Great idea using the sandwich toaster! I might have to try to find a way to modify our george foreman grill lol
my local organic shop has recycled floor/wall tiles that i guess are a small business somewhere. somehow they manage to get film wrappers for sweets/biscuits/crisps etc inside the mix, shrunken but still readable. they seem to have a softer texture than your end product and the floor tiles are three quarter inch thick but they feel so warm compared to ceramic. a nice, quirky alternative for an unheated downstairs utility or boot room.
FWIW - I have an ex-office paper shredder I bought off ebay that cuts into milk bottles into strips. I just tested it - no jams or issues. I cut the tops and bottoms from about 20 bottles, sliced them to make large sheets, and fed the sheets in. It is a pretty heavy duty unit though, and, sadly, doesn't cross-cut.
looks like good flooring material, hard plastic tiles maybe?
Could be - it would need texturing to make it less slippery - HDPE has a very low modulus of friction - in terms of common plastics, only Nylon is more slippery.
AtomicShrimp
its no bueno. if its slightly "dented" its going to hurt .
AtomicShrimp So, I put the sheilding in a shallow pan, add the HDPE, more sheilding, and a HEAVY metal weight that has been shaped to fit the pan and tooled with grooves... might work?
Sounds like it might. Ramp the heat up nice and slowly, I suggest.
AtomicShrimp
Thanks for the quick reply! I've watched a few more vids and saw one in which the hot plastic was placed into a wooden mold and clamped for pressing. That looked promising. The bigger problem, I think(now) will be to find a caulk that will adhere.
It's a real BAD shame milk jugs and tons of plastic just gets wasted left in land fills when it could easily be melted & repurposed in to other useful items, just think of how much better the world would of been if we did that! I really like your video! I've been collecting and mincing a few empty jugs to make a mallet head seeing how hard your plastic came out has me excited to get on it! 😁
Very cool you did a very good job of instruction. I think I want to attempt to make a pair of bolsters for my automatic knife. Thank you for the information.
I'm watching your videos! You are amazing! So many great ideas. Bye for now...just off to watch some more.
Love the table cloth!
If you could make it in thin sheets you could make your own window blinds. Learn how to make molds and make your own plates & flatware. Use shreds as pillow stuffing. Make "Dutch" style shoes. Garden rakes. Edging. Decking planks. Garden pavers. Bird houses, feeders, baths.
dad why is there melted plastic in my grilled cheese?
That's kraft cheese, son.
😆
son, what did i tell you about using the toaster for food?
@@pmendes99 😂
T.J Brown lol, this grilled cheese doesn’t taste right, dad.
I think the key is to make larger pieces. You can use plain newspaper. I imagine you could put the chips between newspaper and then some corrugated the heating on both sides and get a coordinated sheet when you get done
The newspaper would probably stick permanently to the plastic - although this might not be a problem if the surface is to be machined.
I am very excited about this idea as I am always useing plastic panels insted of wood in my projects as it lasts longer and is already waterproof I also rework Grociery bags into cordage and rope and the like to recycle those to keep them out of the land fill
love the tip about placing nuts in the corners to control thickness :)
I think this omelette would be tastier with a bit of cheese in it.
toditron Very good! However...what kind of cheese ? Stilton? Derbyshire ? Wensleydale ? Dutch Gouda ? Red Dorchester ? Cheddar perhaps ? (Monte Python cheese shop skit reference. Sorry-yes, I'm a silly dork. Lol )
Hey A Noni! Why dont you write a poem and not attribute it to yourself! (Sorry, Homestar Runner reference)
Send it through a paper shredder to save your hands n fingers
I watched a video an hour ago where a guy used his kitchen blender and it works fantastically. It was damn near a powder.
I've just started using a blender it's not super quick but my hands are thankful for it.
Fabulous and inspiring video. I don't understand why I could smell melting plastic in my house around the middle of this video, though.
Wow how gorgeous for bath tiles!
Thoroughly enjoyed your video. Think I will be trying this. We use a lot of water bottles, milk jugs and coffee containers and I have seen videos on dying plastic. Thanks for the brain food.
You deserve more subscribes
If you want to save time cutting up the caps and such is to use a paper document shredder. The first one I tried cut into strips, the one I use now cuts into bits which I run through 2 or 3 times until I have the size I want. Way easier than scissors or snips and all the bits fall into a bin for easy handling. I also punch out shapes from a thin material of different color and lay them on top of the sheet for the final melt and press, embedding them. Cool!
I tried it and it just destroyed the shredder
@@AtomicShrimp your material was too thick or your shredder has a small motor. I'm sorry I should have mentioned the one I use is a heavy duty one I got at Office Depot, it will shread pop cans no problem or up to 4 lids at one time. Specs say it will handle 10 sheets of paper at once.
Suggestion: Cut up pieces may be easy with 1. Shredder 2. Blade Paper Cutter.
I found this video to be extremely useful. thanks so much!!!
This should be required work for plastics industry lobbyists. For every hour of lobbying they do, 100 hours of hand cutting plastic into tiny pieces... for minimum wage.
phiksit sounds fun :D
"plastic milk bottle"
In multiple other videos you said you get glass milk bottles delivered...
We are onto you Mr. Mike!
I collected them from the staff restaurant at work
Thank you for this awesome video....l am going to try this out. What a wonderful way to recycle old bottles. Is there anything you can use to melt it if you don't have a sandwich toaster? I'm thinking about people living in rural Africa who could recycle all the bottles that are thrown away? Wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much for helping save our beautiful planet....the Earth, sea creatures, animals and l thank you! Luv this!
Those crystal clear bottle you see for soda, water, juice are usually PET/PETE and so they melt ad higher temps and not at all can that be mixed with PE. but those caps on bottles are usually PE.
The nastiest pizza I've eaten in quite a while.
Something tells me this is how they're made in fast food restraunts
neat! we need more people like you in Alberta.
Hmm HDPE is used in combat robotics, interesting I wonder if I could use this method to make armor and a chassis for a 3lber?
It's very resilient to blunt or sharp impact; not so good with abrasion (so one of those robots with a circular saw weapon could cut through it - maybe a thin layer of steel or titanium to resist cutting, laminated with a thicker inner layer of HDPE to resist impact)
This is a wonderful tutorial. Thank you.
I did this, in my oven on a metallic tray. Next time I am going to try and smith those bad boys into cutting knives for the kitchen
Guillermo Anderson Benaim how was the oven afterwards?
I wonder what the sandwish-toaster inventor would feel like if he saw your work.
Nice work by the way
Had to admire this guy... he just happened to have handy a large piece of iron girder to flatten the plastic - where would you get that from? Not sure I would have the patience to spend so much time just to end up with a piece of flat plastic. Maybe the prison population could make good use of their recreational hobbies inside, but could they be trusted with this equipment?
The scissors and grill themselves I trust them with. Giving them a ready-made setup to make non-metal-detected weapons, not so much. Though, not every prison is filled with people trying to kill eachother. People sentenced for a year or so will probably be fine. (Ironically, the harsher the sentence, the more likely they'll stop caring about getting out and instead focus on other activities...)
Low security prisons for non violent offenders - perfect.
Thanks for the videio....I can think of so many things to make use of the melted & then hardened HDPE. One thought, when you put the cardboard circle on the sandwich toaster and it spread out....my thought was to cut a 1/2" circle high piece of HDPE (like a pryex bottle that is round) and leave the small pieces inside and then melt it all together......I'm collecting colored HDPE to make a few things. Great idea and Thanks again for the video.
good idea. I would make a mold for my soap making process
That's what I was thinking too. I just need a substitute for the sandwich maker....
we have a testing facility at work to check our LDPE powder.It is exactly the same as a toaster but has a lip around the base to prevent spillage.
Use an old coffee grinder or a blender to chop the plastic. Better yet, a wood chipper... lol
How about paper shredder? That can use plastic cards to be shredders.
How is this still not trending?
It's hard to live plastic free. I'm trying but I like the idea of atleast taking all the plastic that comes into my possession and transforming it to something else.
Im working towards having a bucket with my plastic pieces and then making art from the plastic i use... it doesnt feel like enough tho. (Inspired by this video)
good video and nice info thank you!
greetings from the Netherlands!
Rob.
Some part of me feels this how Taco Bell makes all their food too.
Lmao ;-)
@@AdreenBean -They sell it as PlasTaco
You know it 😵😜🤣
Very nice ideas and very good info too - very easy to understand. Thank you :)
Wow, this was excellent - thanks for sharing. Makes me want to go to the dump and go through all the plastic bottles, lol.
Looks like a good roof tile, good for emergency homes.
This video is educational and i indentfiy the plastic of the water bottle
I wonder how that would work as roof singles?
You would probably have to add something to make it resist degradation under exposure to UV light - or it would eventually fade and start to flake.
have to say that certain blenders/shredders would be cool for this, even a hedge trimmer or an A4 paper cutting board. To test if two plastics are the same/mixeable, you can also bubble them together with a lighter and stick them. if they are the same, they stick.
Retro cutting board.
Albert John Nguyễn so gnarly , man !
have you thought of using the cooking liners folded into a pouch? You could pre make packets for the toaster of various weights.
You could make bricks out of this and make houses as well as save the oceans.
flooring. roof tiles
I was thinking this might be a cool material to make jewelry out of. Have you ever tried pushing this stuff into any sort of shaped mold? I see it doesn't melt into a liquid form that you could pour.... I wonder if it would buckle/shrink away from the side of a mold as it cooled?
I've done some experiments where I squeezed it in between bowls and I have pressed it in a block mould - shrinkage is indeed a problem, but for smallish items it shouldn't be a problem
wow that was fantastic and what a lovely result. I can see how this could become addictive. But I would get too frustrated with the chopping part. I have previously tried to chop bottle tops in my high speed blender but no luck, as the speed of the blender created too much heat. I think a granulator works on a 'chomping' or 'grinding' basis which does not produce heat. I wonder if there's a cheaper way to chomp and grind the plastic?
hi i save the colors up breaking it down will save a ton of space got to be wash very well
this is cool i had good experiences with melting 5 gallon orange buckets they dont even need to be clamped thay just simply flow into a square container however i was wondering if i can make small wind turbine blades with melting hdpe
+Dean Walcott by the way i read an article that said you can remove label glue with peanut butter and i didnt believe it but i tried it anyway and to my surprise leaving the peanut butter on the sticky label residue for about 5 minutes then wiping it off completely removed the label residue there wasnt a trace of any kind of glue left this has saved me hours from scrubbing and pealing labels off. i think cooking oil also can dissolve label residue
Great tutorial! You sound like Erick Idle of Monty Python! Love your accent! ♥ dig
Take a look at the plastic boat article on Atomic Shrimp - I'm not saying you can't do it (and I wish you luck), but learn from my failures!
Your using all your other kitchen appliances why not use a blender?
Jeff Johnson I've tried that, but it didn't work very well for me
@@AtomicShrimp cross cut paper shredder?
I am going to try a large build of my own what I have in mind is a tounoe cover for my pickup trucks bed What Im planing to try is to lay up 1/2" to 5/8" fraim and ribs for the cover and then by using a tarp like HDPE build up made of Groceries bags were I use the Cloths Iron and non stick tinfoil to weld 6- 9 layers of bags into a tarp like sheet and then sew these together to make a large panle that I will attach to the ribs and fraim
Th Linn - Rather than a clothes iron, you may want to use a heat gun or a hair dryer set for high temperature and low air flow.
You can use silicone sheets to hold them flat, as the Atomic Shrimp has done in the video.
I wonder if you could use a heavy duty paper shredder to cut the plastic up?
Take the long strip and fold it many times. Then cut. So much faster
Not faster, because cutting more than one layer at a time is nearly impossible. Guys, I have already tried all of these labour saving suggestions involving shredders, different methods of cutting, etc.
AtomicShrimp What about a quality paper shredder?
I wonder if you've tried a strong paper guillotine for slicing up the flatter parts? I don't have a good one, but may get one soon, because I think it would speed things up over using scissors alone. The flat panels of the milk bottle could be cut into strips *almost* right along - leaving one edge to hold the strips together (a bit like a comb). The sheet could then be turned in the guillotine 90 degrees, clamped, and cut into strips again (across the first strips), falling apart into square pieces.
The easiest way to do this is to use a cookie sheet and put another cookie sheet on top of the one with the plastic then put a couple of bricks on top in put it into the oven I use jet heat at 425 degrees pretty simple. You can even put it in molds to make Christmas decorations just drill a hole for hanging.
i feel so much better throwing my plastic in the river when it is just one concentrated hideous colourful lump of hardened gunk than having to throw each plastic bag individually ---- so much work! The fish and whales enjoy it more too, yay!!
ive seen people put the pieces in a blender before melting, might want to try that in future if you find a cheap one somewhere