How To Recycle HDPE Plastic To Make Parts! Trash to Treasure, Part 1!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- HDPE= High Density PolyEthelene
This will be a two part video experimenting with HDPE Plastics. The first part is learning how the material melts, the second video is how I made a part from the material.
Part 2 • How To Recycle HDPE Pl...
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I work in a plastics molding factory. Make all kinds of stuff....maybe even that bottle. All plastics have melt point. That bottle is around 335 degrees to start melting. We run our plastics at 370-390 degrees, it flows better that way.Having a cooled form will help it take the shape quickly too. just a tip.
Funny, the company i made recycled lumber for a while at, melted it at 348°F which is highest safe melting point.
Thanks for the info.
Rays woodshop too hot, there will be toxic gasses
Rays woodshop. His method is very crude and inefficient
@@avinci3116 Your telling me about toxic gases? :) I guess I should have mentioned that.
Saw a documentary a few years ago about a chap in the far East who melts down empty Yakult tubs/pots to make simple artificial limbs for mine victims.
Worked in a Plastic injection molding plant for twenty years. High Density Polyethylene has a melting point of between 250-360 degrees F. Might want to be sure to be very careful with the melted form which will stick to skin,clothes,shoes and does not feel very good. Polyethylene can almost become liquid at around 450 to 475 degrees and does not come off of anything very easily. We melted Plastics in an long metal barrel. This barrel had a screw inside it with the incline of the threads tapered so as to increase the pressure put on the plastic which would help it to melt as it went from the feed throat to the front of the screw. The outside of the barrel also had sections that were heated by heater bands. The screw was turned by a hydraulic vane motor. At the tip of the screw was a check valve. Plastic would go past the check valve as the screw retracted once the shot size was made the machine would push the screw forward which closed the check valve on the tip and forced the plastic into the mold through a sprue hole in the mold. So basically when the plastic is shot into the mold under pressure it is in a semi liquid state. The molds are temperature controlled via a machine called a thermolator which would heat certain parts of the mold while cool water was also used on other parts of the mold to help the part to become solid quicker. We made plastic parts for Whirlpool refrigerators and other whirlpool products. We also used PVC, CPVC, Polycarbonate, Styrene, Acetal Delrin, and many other plastics, each having different melt points and specs. I worked on all the machinery and kept 52 presses running the best I could along with about three other maintenance men. And one last thing we used grinders to take bad parts back down to pellet form which we loaded into a large hopper above the feed throat.
David Bean - That sure takes me back.
I made baby toys for about 2 yrs. (Luv’n’Care)
what do you think about melt abs plastic? like on electronic case
Very good Information , you make your channel.
@ David Bean, thanks for the information, I am a collector of 1/6 (12") GI Joe Figures, I was thinking about using the black plastic clothing hangers with clips that I acquired .....to make equipment parts etc. What temps would they melt?
Cool, man. Thanks for sharing. I was kind of expecting this story to have some sort of accident or tragedy mixed in, but interesting nonetheless! Next time, give the people what they want! Lol
HDPE= High Density PolyEthelene. You want to heat it up slowly at lower temps than you used, otherwise you cook it , burning off some of it's strength and making it more brittle over time. 105 to 115 °C /221 to 239 °F is the best temperature range for melting your average HDPE.
+Rusty Evolution I run at 385F I don't think at 239F you'd even touch the stuff. You certainly would not get a cohesive melt at that temperature. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. What you have to realize is the recycled plastic is not commercial pellet stock, it is also recycled too. So the resulting properties from a garage melt are not going to be lab grade. As far as burning some of its strength goes I dare you to try to even bend so much as a quarter inch thickness of the plastic I make. Your avatar picture is quite appropriate. It would make a total monkey out of you!
That would be a warm up temp for HDPE. If you want to form it easily, 370- 390 degrees is a good range. Makes it flow better. 250 -270 degrees is for low density plastics. I work with plastic all day :) I help make many of the things we use on a daily basis. from your kids toys to the cars we drive.
Rusty I made lumber for small company when i first moved to FL the owner told me to make sure the tem remained at 350°F though the highest safe melting point is 356, the lowest setting being 248 wich is very easy to look up on the internet and stated by numerous informative engineering sites these days, You are barely melting it at those temps and btw that is 120-180 for C temp users. Best temp is 350 for pliability but not soupy and any higher would degrade the material to unusable. Creative Mechanisms is a good source of plastic qualities and safety info.
@@Joshua79C that was really informative! Thank you!
I shred bleach bottles into strips and then use those strips as drawer guides for drawers.
I take old toothbrushes and bend the neck for cleaning chainsaws, etc. this is done by exciting the molecules of the plastic over a simple flame. It keeps the shape you bent it to. Given that it stands to reason a similar process, as you demonstrated is certainly viable. I also make machete sheaths from vinyl siding, and long bows from pvc pipe.
Thank you for the video. I read the comments and fix the plastic part of my broken headphones. I made a moldthen I just cut the plastic into fine pieces. And I put it in the oven at 350 F
Well today I finally going to used this knowledge and make something useful!
( Making controller holders for my games )
I've wondered about this a couple times over the years. Awesome to know it's possible and someone is doing it.
Hi ! I just like to say , recycling plastic 's many fun's of times ! Used all the bottle 's , turned into rod's ! Useful 's , for 3D printing! Or broken 's , welding!! Rod stick 's as glue '
Most antique fishing poles had handles made from cork.
Correct.....
Yep
Rays woodshop already mentioned melting points but there is another thermal property of plastics that comes first and is HUGELY important to working with them: Glass Transition Temperature. This is what you're seeing first off in this video; the point at which a plastic becomes soft and loses its shape under releasing of internal stresses and the force of gravity. This is not the same thing as melting, but it is easily confused as such because the plastic becomes easily workable at this critical point. Once allowed to cool, it will hold whatever shape you forced it into and once again be hard, or this is *really* important, be even HARDER and MORE durable than it was before. In 3D printing, more experienced people will exploit this by baking their initial parts in sand or other such supporting substrate, allowing the plastic to lose rigidity without losing shape, and the resulting cooled part can have dramatically better strength and heat tolerance from then on. This matters to temperatures because afterward, the same amount of heating won't have the same effect anymore. It is now a material with permanently changed properties. Also important to note that not all plastics benefit from this, and some may even lose strength and durability.
Melting, in plastics work, is the temperature at which a plastic will literally pour like a thick syrup. Some plastics do really well with this state, others DO NOT, and these are very high temperatures for most industrial plastics, like upward of 250C, even upward of 300C. Polycarbonate is a fine example of a ridiculously high melting point plastic, yet if you're careful, you can bend it very effectively at the glass transition temperature and not risk burning it or compromising its impressive strength.
One thing to note about melting temps and glass transition temps is that it's not at all the same experience as like ice turning to water or metal turning to a liquid state. Such materials have a very fine line between solid and liquid. Plastics on the other hand tend to first lose structural rigidity gracefully, then more and more as they get hotter and hotter. As they approach the point at which they flow nicely, there's a strong risk of burning or destructive change in properties with additional heating, so in the industry they maintain rigid controls over hot enough but not _too_ hot. What gets the job done without too much compromise is right where you need to be, and every plastic type has its own unique range. Take PLA for instance going to slop inside a hot car in summer, vs. ABS getting hot enough to give you burns when you pick it up but still holding its shape and strength very well.
I cut the top off soda cans pack in as much milk jug as I can ,melt it add more push out all the air with a wood dowel and repeat until full to the top.place a weight on top while it cools or the side will pull in.then just peel the can off with pliers,you get areal nice cylinder.
He made a nice part, smashed together like some kind of rock.
Fyi, the container or what ever you have might also say 02, PEHD. Guess it depends on location manufactured. Same thing thoug, High density Polyethylene.
you can do this on a stove top with a low heat. I shred the plastic into bits and slowy add as the last bit melts into goo. non stick baking sheets new are good for making plastic sheets but for tubing some kind of extruder is needed. most companies seem to cool the liquidish tube with a water table of sorts. I guess I could post a video durr lol.
How long does it take for the plastic to melt and harden? Also, can I use a higher temperature than low?
Aaron McMillan can you make guns out of this.
I love Jesus HDPE is pretty soft, I would not recommend.
Andrew, you sure its soft? Seeing as its often used for replacement plastic sleepers by some railways and also as mats and cribbing by construction companies due to its great compressive strength and durability. Oh and i made lumber for a small company for a while in 2005 helping them out when they needed.\ and one of their customers is a dock builder and use the lumber for decking boards. ON the other hand you may be thinking of PP which is more flexible and other lesser stiff plastics. UHMW PE and HD PE alone are used now a days in conveyor equipment to provide a slicker surface to reduce wear on the conveyor belts. You can easily find videos of PE used for cutting boards and as i mentioned before on YT.
Joshua79C C it's too soft to make guns, I would use plastic for 3-D printing.. if you can get the fire resistant plastic and then get a plastic extruder for making filament and mix the fire resistant stuff with carbon nano tubes or graphene would be your best bet for making firearms
350F is borderline hot enough to really melt HDPE. I Melt at 385F and it is a lot runnier then.
any higher than 356 and your asking for a lesser PE quality as it melts at a max of 356°F, and remolding it too much also degrades it
I was sent here in a search looking to make a stir bar for some backyard chemistry, but im going to use bleach bottles, since i know what theyre made of without having to look up labels. Still, good tips.
I like your in-home recycling program.
Moises Wahnon Maman
Aaawww wanted to see you make the part..
I saw in the below comment that this plastic was non-toxic. That was going to be my question. I would be concerned about breathing around it as it softened in the oven. Interesting video.
I wouldn't go as far as to say non toxic. But it doesn't offgas unless you burn it. Milk jugs are made from the same material, the plastic itself is believed to be one of more safer plastics to work with.
Always good to add new information to the old brain!
Could you make a plastic retaining wall block?
DUDE !! I was just thinking about this the other day.. Thank you!!!
👨💻heat on cooking paper ! best to grind up in a processor or whats u have? make moulds fix cracked plastic parts all good 👍
if heat the mould 1st so it dont cool down too fast allowing it to flow in better
Does HDPE mean it’s not hazardous to breath?
A future idea i've wanted to do is make a big mold and take recycle bottles that are see through and make a plastic statue.
It's a wonderful material when in one piece.
Light, takes a hit, soft enough yet sturdy enough to keep a shape.
What's not to love?
Except the polluting and misuse of it all over the world. _Poor fishies_
When you look for the plastic source keep in mind that general rule is: more transparent plastic is the purer it is and has better properties.
All colors of new or virgin material is of highest grade. then again there is five types of PE grades, from LDPE to UHMW PE used in making Dyneema fibers.
350F is good for not destroying printed circuit boards.
find the die-cast metal molds for Creepy Crawlers and use them as press molds
That seemed like a GREAT idea, so I gave it my best shot. th-cam.com/video/fQ-u1wXUiP8/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for making this comment lol cause he did it ahha
alabama3226 ii
THANKS FOR 350°!!! I'm not having my conventional oven at the right tempuature.
SO easy to find information these days on the net, between 245 and 356 is the perfect melt setting any higher and your degrading the properties.
You need higher temp. It WILL liquify. It will weld together with no seam at all.
It obviously casts as well.
Thank you so much for the very informative video. Uses of this product would be endless. Only thing is 3OOC, would cost much electricity & escalation of my UK electricity bill. Think. I may need a manually operated Furness. Thanks again fab video. Best of luck. Thumbs up & Subscribed.
Pat Pathinayake 350F
Thank you very much.
what would be better is to collect and melt until you have made a 5000 pound block then you can recycle it at local center.
really ingenious. it was necessary to think of it. thank you for the idea!
Never use metal on non stick. You'll ruin the coating. Use wooden spoons.
Henry Correa let's go Mets! !!!
You sound like my mother.
or the person who paid for the pan :)
Nice now I can finally make something useful to make and mold to replace a broken plastic parts or somethin that could help
You’re awesome this was great information
I work with HDPE, HIPS, PETE and K-Resin. If I were you I'd be working with HIPS, High Impact Poly Styrine.
This vintage-fishing rod has a high nostalgic value to me. Let´s melt some trash and stick it to my loved item.
"Bingo...."
If you ese baking paper you can manipulate the plastic a lot easier,
how about using a piece of pipe as the mold, lieing with parchment paper rolled into a tube? the paper has a silicone coating.
Can work but you have to press after adding and melting a few inches, add a few, press, add a few press, to avoid air holes and give good structural integraty. And then you have to hope it shrinks enough when it cools to be able to be pushed out the pipe. I saw someone make a half pipe, that he jubilee clipped together making it easyer to split and recover the core later. That seemed to work. Good luck :)
Parchment burns but does not really catch fire though HDPE has a high 356°F melt point at most, from my experience working for a small recycler making lumbers and some other specialty pieces the molds seldom had any plug up issues, but yeah at wort a little hammering with a wipe to free the part usually does the trick and the molds had a open back end and door on the ejection connector end to make most removals of pieces easy by work gloves since it was melted at upward of 180°C/356°F. Recycled Plastic Factory is the name of the place now.
A plastic shredder would be nice.
Next thing you know, he'll be molding a Corvette out of pill bottles lol.
I want to follow your durections but it has a bad smell when heated then I get complaints from my neighbors. Do you have similiar environmental problems?
You might have had plastics other than #2 / HDPE. Soft drink bottles are usually PET #5 - bad. Also check lids - can be different to the bottle.
HDPE shouldn't smell.
Looks like the taffy a Big Hunk or an Abazaba is made into. Glad to know it can be melted and reshaped. TFS!
Did you ever make anything out of this recycled piece of plastic? Part 2?
Given how sticky this stuff is, and the fact that it works like wood, I'm guessing it would make awesome filler in small applications. (To account for shrinkage.)
If you are attached to your fish pole and you have a lathe and it originally had a wooden handle why are you trying to make a plastic one for it? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep it with a wooden handle?
Do you by any chance know if the lids for the milk cartoons are the same plastic as the jug?
I fink so
Owh.. no way..my Wife will be angry if I try to use that teflon to cooking plastics😧😧
nice video Sir!!
process all of it into tiny bits. makes fewer voids and melts faster.
+random consumer I have not found that to be true. The "tiny bits" as you call them are never like commercial pellets. Regardless of how you may equate the two.
When remelting either from recycled beads or shavings your going to get micro bubbles and voids. Worked for a small recycle company in 2005 and noticed sometimes the surface was smooth but cut one end and you will see voids.
Poor man's epoxy resin.....love it!
ALL PLASTICS CAN BE REYCLED but the more you use the plastic the more brittle it becomes , and this is not the way it is processed to make a bottle
Also too high a temp also degrades its properties. PP for one will catch on fire above its melting point of 360°F/180°C.
Thanks for the video! How fast did it cool to a solid (feel) texture? GREAT IDEA if its malleable for several minutes....
Not very long! Maybe 2 or 3 mins. Others have suggested using a higher temp.
That's a good tip. I could have fixed my bed with that.
is it better to use a heat gun? i dont feel like putting plastic into an oven that i use to bake my food
Cool stuff!
What if you a blow torch? I know it's fairly easy to mold small pieces of plastic using a lighter, I dunno about big pieces especially since the plastic will probably burn.
Great info - thanks.
Why do milk cartons shrink when heated but their caps do not?
Thanks for the video, what are some safety precautions I should take?, should I wear a mask or gloves or any safety wear?
I'm currently using "Gorilla" plastic. Using boiling water to melt it. But this seems like an even cheaper option. Gonna try it for my next repair project.
Um not sure what you mean by gorilla plastic as i never heard of it and I know all types of plastics. Or you are referring to that putty called Sugru which is an adhesive plasticiser, not the same formula as PE.
He's talking about one of the varieties of polycaprolactone like Instamorph/Polymorph (Sugru is silicone-based iirc). PCL is neither as tough as HDPE, nor is it temperature resistant. It's ok to make little doodads out of for indoor use in temperate climates, but it certainly wouldn't work as a fishing rod handle.
Paul G looks like he didn't quite know all types of plastic lmao
Get clay then mold something then put the molten plastic then let it cool so u get a toy for ur son or anything
I see this is part 1. I did not see part 2 on your list of uploads. I'm really looking forward to it. Are you going to melt down an entire 5 gallon bucket or are you saving up water bottles?
In my experience, HDPE does not last. If you compare leaving a PETE plastic bottle in the sun versus leaving even something as thick as a 5 gallon bucket in the sun, give it a year or two and the PETE bottle will still be solid but the bucket will be fragile and falling apart.
Yet marine grade seaboard is HDPE. It has UV stabilizers in it.
you sure that 5 gallon pail was #2 plastic?
I no longer leave any kind of plastic outdoors in the sun. I got tired of picking up, throwing away, and replacing broken gardening implements, cracked buckets, and random plastic shards !
Thanks for the very interesting vídeo!
Very Informative ..Thanks
Would warming the hdpe cause it to off gas and set off a smoke detector in a mobile home?
This may be a dumb question but will this stink up the house or should this be done outside? Will it leave a lasting smell for future food that will be cooked in the oven or toaster oven?
That pill bottle was already a cylinder. It seems like you could have used the shape to your advantage
why not melt it in a copper chef square pan? nothing sticks to it!
yea if your wife caught you doing that she would kill you.
Aluminum will work just fine too.
That is your old throw away toaster oven? Clearly I have to up my shop set up game...
انا معايا علبة صفيح بتاعة سمنة وموقد نار وكل اما اجى اصهر يتصاعد دخان قوى ثم يحدث اشتعال فى فوهة العلبة
HDPE Hight Density Poly Ethylen. (CH2)n
can molt but burn if too much heathed.
That's just like Silly Putty or silicone paste
Nice video matey, i am aiming to make new handles for the tail stock on my lathe. The ones on it are to short and sharp with flat sharp end, i want to make one that's more round and has a ball end.
Paul Emmerson uł
I've got number two on my bottom.
Is there any toxic fumes doing it this way to be aware of?
By what I have read, it doesn't offgas unless you burn it.
Probably part of the toaster oven are made out of HDPE. :) Does this stuff bond to other plastics for repairs? I am trying to repair a plastic bracket on my car that a bit has snapped off.
What if there is a recycle icon 4 inside and it says pet below
Can probably use it to patch a cracked bumper
Those are more likely PP or ABS and they can be fixed with a plastic welder, but you'd need the matching plastic welding rods. Some bumpers are really thin, though, so a structural repair (like a mounting tab) might not be possible in those cases.
Thank you for sharing this i like your video.
Folks..don’t try this at home in any of your kitchen appliances. Plastics are loaded with all sorts of chemicals that are safe to handle after they cross link and set..but once you reheat not so safe..need a plastic part go on the Internet..wanna help the environment..continue to recycle..
You are absolutely correct. One needs to know a bit about the chemistry of plastic before randomly melting and working with various plastics.
Can you elaborate on this? I've never heard about "cross link and set" - does something happen to re-melted HDPE that didn't happen the first time it was melted?
It honestly seemed like more of an experiment for yourself than a how to video, or the first step to the rest of the how to.
+Kyle de Montigny And you would be correct. ;)
+Kyle de Montigny When I started melting HDPE I did essentially the exact same thing myself. I took a small bit of plastic and melted it down on a sheet just to see what the molten material was like. It is often a good idea to start small before scaling up. One thing this person didn't so was being the temperature up to where the material burnt to calibrate their process. You should go up to burning, then back off that about 10 degrees for your actual melts.
You need between 120-180°C/248-356°F to melt PE. such easy info to find even back when I worked for a recycler company of small size the owner told me this himself and showed how to operate the machine efficiently to make him lumber stock for a $9/hr wage.
Is it able to melt enough to turn into a liquid?
Edit: LOL watching it again and he said twice that it doesn’t melt into a liquid... my bad
NICE!
You showed up the milk jugs which had labels, and mentioned the HD for 5 gallon buckets. They all have ink.
The point is to be aware of the fact that these pollutants have different melting points than HDPE, and change its strength.
That is one great reason recycling HDPE is not scaling or returned to manufacturing. It is impure, and unpredictable to less useful.
Do you think you can just microwave the plastic instead, if so for how long?
Holy cow - TURN YOUR PHONES DOWN. If you can here him talking, you're gonna do some hearing damage when the toaster oven beeps.
You should of been standing there! My ears are still ringing!
Have you done anything else or parts at all?
He said "lathed"⬅like that's a verb😂like that's even a word.
+zapwatt I did! I coin up words all the time! LOL
Well, Z, I looked the word " lathed". And for your information it is actually that, a word and a verb on top of that! And its is defined as " to cut or shape on a lathe ". Plus there was two more words with the same meaning which are "lath-ing" and " lathes". Just to let you and whoever else would like to know this fact.
Rodney Russell
Rod, you can say that all you want to but if you walk into ANY machine shop and say something like that, they'll laugh you right out of their shop and lock the door after you've been escorted out.
The operation is called turning.
zapwatt well Mr z, you can say what you want to all day also, but if you have never used either a wood or and a metal lathe as I have, or even used a CNC machine you really do not have a good grip on the terminology. You can turn the machines and engage the motor and all it will do is turn the chuck or piece of stock mounted in or in it ( except for the CNC machine witch requires a program) that is all that will happen, a turning. It is the moment you touch the stock with the cutting tip of choice and start the process of shaping the stock that you actually start to lathe or lath-Ing the stock occurs. And how many lathes do you own ? I own both a wood and a metal and use them quite frequently. And if a shop I might would go into and they had a problem with the terminology I use to explain what product I wanted made and they started to snigger or laugh I would walk out the door locking it if I could keeping those particular individuals inside and away from the general public.
It is a word. Maybe look it up before you correct someone.
استخدم حوض ماء وكمبروسرهواء مع غاز مشتعل وجرب النتيجة انا شخصيا لسة مجربتش
Again... WHEN DOES THE RECYCLING STARTS???
Is it safe to cook food in the microwave afterwards
"Its super hard"...... thus the name HDPE High Density Poly Ethylene
I was surprised as my workbench top has a quarter inch HDPE sheet on top to protect it. It's super soft and flexible, even easy to scratch and nick. Grocery bags are also mostly HDPE, and they are soft and flexible.
Can you use a microwave
Great vedio
HDPE molding white heating temperature km
Well in prison they make knives by melting down then lapping a edge on concrete sometimes using cleanser as a lapping compound
Sounds like a good skillset to have in prison. LOL
can you make a mold for pouring cold process soap?
+Doreen a Molten HDPE does not pour. The goo would stick to the ceiling if you got it there. You can inject HDPE under pressure though. HDPE will burn before it gets anywhere close to what we would consider a liquid. Just a property of the material I suppose.
You can melt it but yeah its not viscous like oil or such, but you will want to press it as you heat it to make sheets or such in small quantity of you can not afford an extruder machine which can get expensive for a DiYer.