How Recycled Plastic Buttons Are Made
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- We’ve been making a butt-ton of buttons recently, so we thought we’d take you guys along for the ride and show you how our injection moulding process looks.
Everything starts with the source plastic. This colourway is called ‘Blue Galaxy’ and is made up of blue milk bottle tops, purple water bottle tops and white shampoo bottles. We pre-weigh the plastic and load it into the hopper. Since all our plastic stock is recycled, different colours behave differently in the machine. This batch needed 8 minutes to fully soften until we could inject into the mould.
We always pre-heat our moulds in our repurposed oven as this helps to improve the flow of plastic in the mould as well as the surface finish. Once the mould is warm and the plastic has melted, we clamp the mould in place and turn the injection wheel by hand. Doing it this way gives us a feel for when the mould is full. Mass production plastic moulding companies like the repeatability and predictability of virgin plastic, as they can program their machines with the same pressure for every cycle. Sure this way is slower, but it works great for recycled plastic shred.
The aluminium mould cools the plastic almost instantly, meaning we can demould straight away. Some colourways need polishing, but Blue Galaxy pops out of the mould nicely and just needs the excess trimming off, which of course, all gets saved and reused.
Our 11mm recycled plastic buttons are available to buy on our website in any of our 9 custom colourways, or as assorted packs.
🪡
#ecofriendly #sustainablefashion #greatbritishsewingbee #buttonsbuttonsbuttons #cleanupchallenge #brothersmake #plasticrecycling #recycledplastic
as someone who works in an actual injection molding factory and sees parts made like this on an industrial scale every day, seeing someone do it on a much smaller scale is actually surprisingly impressive
You make caps?
@@sirstan262😅😅 q is ❤
Where can I. Get that
I work in an injection molding factory as well but we just mostly make bottles
We make pens
That’s a lot of work and equipment for 10 buttons at a time!
Є більші форми для виливання пластмаси...
Yeah I’d expect them to at least make a dozen in one go hardly worth bothering otherwise 🤦♂️
@@DaveGDesigns yea exactly!!
@@DaveGDesigns😂
you're just lazy.
I've never seen plastic injection moulding on such a small scale. Gives me ideas.
For the cost, time, effort. It's not worth it.
@@mcdowe245it's fun though
I hope your ideas and dreams take you far homie 💕 💡
I would only buy these buttons if they cost the same as normal material or less. 90% of these "recycled" consumer products want to charge us more for using different material. Nonsense lol
Check out precious plastics
As an Injection molding engineer, this is satisfying!
Used to make shampoo bottles for Unilever man it was so cool. They took me out of the warehouse and put me on the machine. I felt like I was in an episode of how its made 😂.
Is this profitable?
@@diegogutierrezdtvengineer ? Or operator production ?
This is a very liberal and loose use of the term “engineer”
@@diegogutierrezdtv This is clearly hobby level where the goal is not financial as an industrial process may be fifty to one hundred times faster. For the time invested per button produced you wouldn't even come close to minimum wage.
This is awesome. I'd love to do it. Every button made is plastic removed from the rubbish pile. No matter what people say on here, that's an achievement. It's a tiny step towards a better world.
Nahh. In the UK we have had national recycling for the last 20 years, where our local councils pick up plastic, glass and metal every other week/ weekly (depending on your council). So that plastic would have probably ended up being made into a new bottle.
This is the part where the conspiracy theories that everyone no matter where they live in the world has some how gone to their local recycling center and seen them dump the recycling in with the normal waste... The fact most plastic bottles in the UK say on the label 50-100% recycled material proves its actually being recycled. Also many products like composite decking use recycled plastics.
@@noire1001most Americans would have issue with being asked to sort their trash for government mandated recycling
Nobody probably realized how much energy that just took to make 😂
I was just thinking those buttons are gonna be like $6 each
*renewable energy. And we sell the buttons for £5 for 10
@brothersmake pah what a rip off I’d expect at least eleven for a fiver 😂😂
@@BrothersMake现实是纽扣很便宜
@@BrothersMakemake something more interesting and more useful than buttons then you can sell it overpriced af not buttons these buttons tho 🤣
For the video it’s just 1 mould, but in production you could have 10,20 or more in the oven getting ready at once
😂
at the end when he tips the cup out, you can see that he has many ready for trimming on the table. i think even at this scale he's got a lot going simultaneously.
Bro all i see is people disin this poor dude, like those buttons sick af, they look very pretty and would 100% buy them for higher price than regular buttons, which are just one color, keep up the work dude, don't mind or think of the people that say otherwise! ❤
Ppl on the internet are dumb. They don’t get that in reality, theyd be heating up several moulds at a time, and would melt way more plastic at once. Then they would just fill up all the moulds one by one. It would be very fast and efficient.
I honestly love seeing people recycle stuff like this. Idk why, but seeing waste reused into something useful just brings a smile to my face.
This just brings me joy to see little buttons being made and I don’t know why 😊☺️
The most impressive thing is actually the pins that create the thread holes in the die.
Yeah, how do you machine that out in a mould?
@@therminator8289 uhm you cut it in production
Imagine 3D printing with that giant nozzle
Next idea was probably "woah let's print a house!!"
@@Patty-qy8qh what no way I’m doing a bumper for my car with that thing
Have you seen the massive cement 3d printers? It almost looks like ice cream coming out.
Mrs Hotkinkyjo want to invested to this product.
@@dustinsmith8341 It looks cool until you remember how concrete behaves, then it looks catastrophic.
An at home, manual injection molder??? Very cool!
As a plastic injection mold technician working towards a mold maker this is the cutest thing ive ever seen
These are very cool molds. Much respect to the engineers that designed them.
I think it uses too much material, half of the material needs to be re-recicled... but i'm no expert, so problably I'm not seeing something here
Nice plastic injector, as a Tool Engineer, I feel proud to be a machinist and an operator while watching this short video. Making small dies and moulds give out useful outcomes, and hence, we are the underrated engineers.
You should, absolutely!
As a tool engineer I surprised that Plastic injector doesn't have to be Fancy Expensive like industrial ones..
🫡 I'm also a molding tool technician, I've never seen someone heat up the metal in an oven but the rest is pretty decent. Btw you also could use PET, thats the plastic from common bottles . This plastic is also a thermoplastic so you can recycle it, by simply heating it up the molecules will be amorph again, and it's perfect for your injection moding tool. But of course you have to mention the flow when its plasticized, otherwise you won't fill the cavity fully and end up with some cake.
@@benjaminkopf8488 they have their own ways but it's cool tho.
PET isn’t something we work with. The temperature window is so a narrow that recycled sources make it inconsistent. Plus it absorbs moisture so needs extra drying before moulding otherwise it becomes dangerous
There are already enough buttons in existence that the world would be fine if not another single button was made. My mother alone has enough for a large city.
we arent getting anymore until you use the ones we already have.
Ah, but that's a distribution issue -- if your mother were able to provide aesthetically-consistent buttons to clothing manufacturers, independent or otherwise, your statement would indeed be correct. But the logistics aren't there.
Be a darling and send 14 3cm wooden buttons to Berlin, Wisbyer Str, yes?😊
Ditto here - The only problem is, she can never find the exact one she's looking for.
Did you miss the word "recycle"? The point of this short is not to make more.
i like how the leftover bit of plastic could make a nice Christmas ornament, very efficient.
It's amazing what you do ❤ I worry about the energy used in these small batches , particularly heating in the oven. Such a big space for a small object
The buttons are wholly unique as each piece melts in a certain way . Don't let people tell you cant do something, the setup is working well. I want buy a glass crusher and start making sand out of waste or clean the roads of all garbage . Every effort is somewhat effective.
Those look so nice! I wish i had some space to set up a shop like y'all's right now. I hope I can find time to clear some land this winter and build one and get involved in the community by next year. 😁🙏
Aamiin
how much coke did you do?
You don’t need that much space or gear, if all you want to do is mould some plastic items.
A person can easily chop up plastic by hand. or pick up a used blender at a secondhand store, and put thin and small pieces in there to shred them quickly.
A person can easily make a mould for custom buttons or almost anything else. Lots of videos exist on the Internet to show how to make all sorts of moulds. It can be extremely cheaply done in all sorts of materials.
A person can easily melt down plastic scraps that have been cut up, in a dedicated vessel, such as a tin can.
and it takes almost no effort to pour melted plastic into a mold. It’s not a whole lot different from making ceramics, but a whole lot simpler and cheaper.
So, a person could just sit at a bench or table in the kitchen or garage with a cutting board and a very sharp knife or a pair of tinsnips to work, And do the melting over the kitchen stove or a camp stove or bbq in the yard.
in terms of space that you need to store your gear, a melting tin with a little spout bent into one side, And possibly a little handle made on it, doesn’t take up much space; and your homemade button mould which is probably no more than 4“ x 4“ x 2“ (10 cm x 10 cm x 5 cm), that’s also very small. it could all go into a coffee can with your tinsnips, very inconspicuously.
You could pour a mold Any time you had a little free time, and put your supplies back in a cake or coffee tin in the cupboard when you weren’t using it.
Once you have a little small scale experience with your coffee can full of supplies in the kitchen, if you felt the need to put money into it and expand, then you would pretty much have the bugs worked out of the process.
And for anybody who wants to come after me for not talking about safety, just understand that I’m going to give everyone credit for having enough intelligence in that department.
Are you telling me you want to get involved in the button making community?
@@jonathanrouse I mean, not buttons specifically, but those are some nice buttons. I want to make goods out of recycled materials. The shop I have planned will ideally be made mostly of recycled materials as well, minus the concrete foundation, the wiring, and some mortar
I don’t understand the negative comments. You know you can make whatever you want with this setup? Not just buttons.
Someone gets it! 🙌🏼
@@BrothersMakefor real. I'd kill for that (don't what it's called) mold injectors.
Best you could make some sick Warhammer models.
make me a sandwich with it then
Husky hylectric mold is the big boy it can do this but with about 35 to 40 mold faces at a time making molds every 10 seconds. This is wayyy too time consuming but I guess for a small business it makes sense
Lol so you have a machining mill or are you forking over a few grand for that mold to be professionally put together? I like the buttons. But this is likely very extra for the volume that is being worked. I can like the buttons but question the method simultaneously 😂
Have you considered modifying the mold so you can reduce waste and increase button output? That star in the middle looks like a lot of wasted time and effort if you just have to keep chopping it back up and throin it in the heater. Idk tho, Im not a button maker 😂
Alot of injection molding facilities actually use methods like the star because it's generally better to use than other forms of connection
There's also other ones where there's a dead end that it seems like a waste but its used to help fill in the mold properly otherwise you have the possibilities of ending with shorting or other manufacturering defects
Those would be the sprue (entry point) and the runners (star shape leading to each buttons) then the runner ends into a gate (narrow opening used to cause shear and force the hot plastic to the ends of the cavity ( button shape)
@@IDKWendigo Ah. for dispersion and such, I see
We got a button expert over here
While it does not look very efficient, Im gonna take a guess and say that the middle star is not waste. they probably chip it and reuse it on their next injection.
Im sure it must be a good way to ensure even distribution on a single die.
Thank you for a video without music 🎉🎉❤❤
I second that! Nothing more annoying than seeing really good visual content made obnoxious by a silly soundtrack. Thank you to the person who posted this video.
Impressive. I use the sun and a solar cooker aka a large Fresnel lens to heat the mold. A press like this would make everything much easier 😀
do you have a video
@@hamathaw1635 No, but I have videos where you can see the Fresnel lens in action, e.g. "Crispy Chicken Wings With DIY Solar Cooker | Fresnel Lens"
yeah great can i have the link
Those things are no joke. I don’t know why I don’t have one in my toolshed; tyvk for bringing up that point.
@@hamathaw1635 I can't put links in comments, RUclips censors them
Love it guys!!!
It will be so cool to see something made in Orange, Red and yellow??? Just like fire 🔥
We'll see what we can do!
You guys rock, been watching your plastic creations for awhile, would love a shop full of equipment to make stuff all day, but it comes with a hefty price tag.
Thanks so much! And it does take a while, but if you build it up slowly, buying second hand and scaling at a rate that suits you, it's definitely achievable. We've got a beginner's video guide on our channel to get you started for very little money if you were interested 🤙🏼
Thank you very much will check it out👍
i want it
I maintain injection mold heads at an industrial plastics company and it’s really neat to see a small operation like this
🇧🇷🇧🇷 It seems "simple" right? But it is not. In reality the world needs more of this process. Much more.🇧🇷🇧🇷
All you goobers in the comments knocking the process for reasons that you're making up - "The buttons are probably expensive", "That took too much energy/time", "We have enough buttons", "Make something more useful" . . . This is probably a proof of concept or small test in a series of tests to figure out how to recycle the plastic bags in general.
Now THAT is a good use of recycled plastic!
Only 10,000x more labor intensive than a new button
Yummy infinite material
The same injection mold process is used to make new buttons
@@Spudcosmiccc Injection molding would be used, yes, but no, there is no chance that the trillions of buttons worldwide are being hand finished.
But the equipment will pay for itself in about 10,000 years!
only 10,000x less plastic waste than a new button
And then all the other plastic gets recycled gaahhh I love this stuff. Those buttons are so cute!
This is great. Less plastic going straight to landfills and they look very cute
Think of how many buttons you could have bought for the price of that mold
Lots
Everyone hating doesn’t understand how amazing it is to create something for yourself
No, that's not it at all.
No, they actually HAVE created something for themselves and know what a wasteful stupid thing this is.
У наших бабушек при жизни были мешочки с пуговицами. Сейчас я думаю откуда они появились🤔
Этож скока одежды было от людей😮
Si acum mai gasesti
We should have community centers where people can bring their materials and do stuff like this.
First time ever seeing this and this was extremely satisfying.
The piece connected would make amazing earrings or an amazing broche
Nice idea!
Betul banget
And that's how Benjamin Button's grandpa started the family business.
And this whole time I thought he got them from a button tree. Sweet.
ブラザーさん達のリサイクル精神が、もう神がかっていて尊敬してます😊😊
Haha! Thanks 🤙🏽🤙🏽
@@BrothersMakeпривет с России.
As much as injection molding is felt like cheap and not as good as something, it really is a cool way of doing things
Love it! I worked at a small shop that made picnic tables and benches out of recycled milk jugs. I liked that job, they just started too damn early in the morning. Like why do we have to get here at 7am? I'm still drunk from last night at that time!
And of course the sprues and nibs get saved and reused again.
Always!
Is it possible to make the sprues shorter?
When a dog is bored, it licks its balls.
Hi dog !
Hi dog
Random?
@@GalaxiumButImLimitedit's a russian idiom for pointless tasks
😂😂
MARAVILLOSO, nunca había visto como se fabrican estos Tan Necesarios artículos para la Confección, felicitaciones a la industria y a la inteligencia del Humano.
I can see that base seiing with the buttons intact as snowflake decorations easily
Ah yes, the most expensive recycled plastic buttons in the world! Estimating 8k for the mould, and 1min cycle time per button (10min cycle per batch), assuming you’d sell each button at 9 cents to include labor, it’d take you 5000 hours or 30k cycles (which a good mould could stand) just to recoup the cost of the mould…
He says he sells them for 50p each so roughly 60 US cents - so almost 7 times your guess so would only be 750 hrs if your other assumptions were correct? You must be including some wage for labour to get your 30k cycles, right? Is $3.80/hr really the minimum wage where you are?
@@cichlisuite2you don't pay taxes?
And 70% of the material is waste
cut to pieces, then reheated, then injected to make the next buttons.
@@CyclingNeko still cost energy
@@Tom-vt4pwSignificantly less energy than processing petroleum into new plastics. If you use solar panels to power the process, then you use EVEN LESS energy. Reusing plastic in this way will always burn less petroleum fuel than any other manufacturing process.
Nothing go to waste… he is recycling… something then maybe your brain don’t understand.😂
I'm more impressed with that machine that inyect the plastic than everything. You made It by hand no?. Made of wood that's tough to do man It's amazing.
Every village should install this type machine.
I love this cause all the scrap plastic can be new buttons
its like a plastic churro when it comes out of the thing at first 😂
That's awesome. I'm always having to make about ten trips to the store a week to buy buttons
what a freaking badass. your set up there. i’ll get there one day.
That’s pretty awesome! And he’s doing 1 for the video, I’m sure they have many more molds. Awesome ❤
The process is amazingly simple here and theirin lies the brillance of it
Just the symmetry made me smile 😁
Cool! I didn't even know that was the kinda thing you could do in an artisan context, so that's neat
Counting these in elementary before putting them in my mouth for some reason 😮💨 soo nostalgic
Love to watch people do there best it so awesome
That's so cool to watch! I didn't even know that this method exists. Looks like a manual 3D printing hehe
I'm working for Nike and we use to have the exact same machine to make recycled dubraes for shoes, super cool
Reminds me of junior high shop class, where we had an injection moulding area. I still have my set of plastic handled screwdrivers.
It was fun to see how things we use everyday and take for granted are made.
As a plastic engineer I find it very satisfying. The other part of me(trained to make millions of plastic parts efficiently) wants to tell you to add a heater to the mold so you can skip the oven and increase the production 😂.
We only heat the mould for the first few cycles, so a mould heating system might be overkill!
Cool way to recycle old 3d prints. Ngl you made it look like a lot of work.
It is a lot of work!
Van born plastic mold injection machine comes to mind.
Wow, and with millions of tons of plastic waste per day, this is really going to make a difference. Thanks for saving the planet.
That's the spirit.
Thank you to recycle for the better world even if it takes time and hard work.. really appreciate it
You are a fantastic Buttonist.
Cool! I wish more people would think about what happens to the plastic that they use.
I could watch this all day
Buttons changed the world!
Keep this alive!! ❤
I am more curious about the machined parts and injectors than the end product tbh, it's very cool.
They do look beautiful ill say that
Mira esta buena la idea y si tuvieras mas moldes , creceria mas la producción .
Aun asi la idea esta como para automatizarla , Buen trabajo!
The first manual injection molding machine I’ve seen. I work at a place that has 25 automatic injection presses. Our molds cost between $10k and $300k
Woah, they sound like some complex moulds!
We all need to do things like this to.keep plastic out of the ocean 💜
Those buttons are really beautiful ❤️
The most professional video one can find
Thats a cute way to do Injection molding🥹
They are so pretty!
Id love too see what else you can make with this. that equipment looks awesome.
Thanks! We'll be releasing videos on all of our products 😊
A button mold seems like an achievable thing to own
Thats an awesome way to recycle and do something useful but it does seem a bit time consuming for such a small amount of product.. but none the less its very impressive. If nothing else id at least get an impact for the disassembly..
I'd love to buy as an xmas decoration!
First time seeing injection moulding that’s pretty cool
injection molding is so awesome
Simple and brilliant.
Injection molding for beginners, who needs an Arburg, Engel or Haitian😂😂. Great job
The first mass produced luxury item...buttons.
Nice work, absolutely love this idea
Oh those are some pretty button!
i don't get what problem people have with this, i personally like how it turned out. i also love the clinking sound it makes when hitting other buttons
Now I kind of want recycled plastic Warhammer models
Excellent work.