Recycling plastic bottles into brooms - GIF

[Altair]

Recycling plastic bottles into brooms.




Previously:

Recycling brake pads - GIF
Recycling tin cans - GIF
Recycling plastic into pellets - GIFs
Plastic recycling machine - GIF
Circuit board recycling GIF

[neilbourjaily]

Set that up at the local farmers' market and sell a bunch of them.

[nova_robotics]

This is great. PET is an excellent plastic with some really great properties. Making some sort of filament and finding a use for it is a much better answer than plastic "recycling." I put recycling in quotes because basically everything we put into the recycling bin goes straight to trash. Almost none of it is actually recycled.

Along those lines, a few companies have popped up that are using plastic as aggregate for asphalt. It's a good idea and improves the properties of the asphalt.

[tooly]

Good recycling idea.
Unfortunately adds to micro plastic pollution.

[bob_3000]

This is great. PET is an excellent plastic with some really great properties. Making some sort of filament and finding a use for it is a much better answer than plastic "recycling.

Sadly those brooms are microplastic factories...straw is the way of the future.

[hemmjo]

If they use plastic as the binder, then it is no longer an asphalt road.

[mwmkravchenko]

Nothing has zero side effects. I am guessing the least egregious is the best choice.

To replace the existing paving infrastructure would be an epic effort.

Get rid of a lot of plastic. To a degree permanent sequestering.

Mark

[nova_robotics]

If they use plastic as the binder, then it is no longer an asphalt road.

They still use asphalt. It's just asphalt as normal, but they add a tiny bit of plastic as aggregate. It's only a few percent plastic waste.

[Ralphxyz]

I think nova_robotics, has the right idea. I don't believe they are replacing asphalt just using a plastic supplemented aggregate.

[hemmjo]

Our township tried a new formula paving material and process several years ago. It used gravel aggregate like a typical asphalt road, delivered with no binding material, stockpiled in a huge pile at the township garage complex. Also staged there were 2 large 40' tank trailers. These were single axle trailers, delivered empty and cribbed into position with the outlet about 2 feet lower then the other end. Basically more a portable storage tank than a trailer. These tanks were then filled from standard, standard 40' tank trailers. Two to fill each of these storage tanks.

The paving machine had storage tanks for the polymer binder that was shuttled to it in smaller trucks. The aggregate was also shuttled to the paver in dump trucks. trucks. Tank and dump trucks would alternate as needed to keep the machine supplied with binder and aggregate. The paving the machine continuously mixed the polymer and the aggregate and spread it just like an asphalt machine would. It was then compacted as normal.

There was no heating involved, just aggregate and some kind of black polymer. There could have been some asphalt in the mix, but you could not smell it.

It held up pretty well for a few years, until during a harsh winter, a lot of the surface ended up in front yards as the snowplows peeled it up in large sheets and tossed it aside in broken chunks.

We now have a standard asphalt road again.