Jan 5, 17 / Aqu 05, 01 00:37 UTC

Plastics and Recycling  

Hello fellow Asgardians,

I would like to know if anyone around knows something about plastics and recycling.

I've been overwhelmed by the amount of plastics in the beach, I get a group of volunteers from the neighborhood from time to time to clean the beach.

We dispose plastics the usual way, just wait the truck to pick it up.

I've been asking myself if we are not throwing money to the garbage and if people would be more encouraged to clean the beaches if I could reward them economically.

I would like to know if anyone around has ideas on how we could transform the plastic in pellets and maybe reshape that plastic into flooring tiles for families that have houses with dirt floors.

I would like to know if their is an environmentally safe way to transform this plastics (bottles, bags etc).

I would love to give collaborators credit and economical remunerations when we are up and running a sustainable business.

I would love to answer your question, feel free to comment.

Have a nice day,

Carlitos

Jan 5, 17 / Aqu 05, 01 22:22 UTC

Current recycling initatives have this monetised already. you're not throwing money to the garbage, just the company that takes it away... That truck that sets it somewhere for processing where the output is sold... As to why they don't pay you to give them what they need to run their business, this is something you would need to address with them.

For transform into "pellets" suitable polymers simply get shredded, melted, and extruded into filiment cut into small chunks. Quite a few plastics can be repurposed as different shapes and uses, the precise polymer in question would define suitabilities and procedures.

I don't believe it "right" to think of Asgardia as a "business" - Sure, we shall have use of trade and money, more so in the earlier phases, but much will be "at a loss" and truely we need to have higher aspirations than revenue, the sole function of a business.

Jan 6, 17 / Aqu 06, 01 02:08 UTC

Thank You EyeR.

Sure, Im just trying to get some money for the community, I don't think I'm out of order, recycling is a must in space to.

I'm starting something basic and I will take it as far as possible.

Right now no one is doing it in my town. All the towns garbage is just stocked in a yard and I believe my fellow friend with the knowledge to do so could help fix this problem.

How should I shred it? How should I melt the plastic?

I understand the basic functionality and processes of a recycling plant. What I don't know is how I can scale it down to an couple of people couple of dollars operation.

I want to DIY a system that I can re-build and transport.

Thank you, I don't make business at a loss. We can't all be programmers or designers or chemists or physicist... We need a bit of everything including people willing to sell and buy.

Any advise on the PET, HDPE and Polypropylene PP Bottles? I would be mostly using those plastics.

Jan 6, 17 / Aqu 06, 01 04:56 UTC

For a "DIY system to rebuild and transport" it suggests starting with a truck, van - preferably a semi.

To assume manually sorting types of plastics you can save space reducing required equipments to shredder - this would be nothing fancy, and a tree shredder could possibly work with little to no modifications, for a "cheap solution" ... idea is mostly to increase the surface area by reducing the particle size. You could build this yourself from scratch using something like a few chainsaw blades/chains arranged in tight evenly spaced lines, preferably two sets layered "horizontal" and "vertical" running in alternating directions powered by an old washing machine motor or w/e. Even a hand crank -=- And the "crucible" - This is possibly the least sensible thing to attempt for portability, but basically you just need somewhere what'll get hot enough to melt the plastic(commonly most don't get soft 'till over 180°C, melt closer to 220°C) with enough control that it doesn't get too hot and set fire to it. Insulating air from this process will reduce fire risks, but too hot can cause problems. Ideally this can then be pumped into an extruder(if sealed, an inert gas, like nitrogen, can be pre-heated and forced into the chamber, forcing the liquid out(easier if exit is lower) - tho gravity fed may be sufficient, if you've enough load - which will force it through a nozzel and into a more "wire" form - cut that into 5mm lengths, and you've got something remarkably similar to "granules" - then it's a case of arranging this equipment in a "sensible" fashion on the vehicle.

I could be wrong about this, but I was thinking the only difference(that matters) between the types is the melting temperature - I'm also not overly conversant on the structural properties of reformed polymers, I'd wager certain types fare better than others.

I'd think it more sense for these facilities to be static, and thusly they can be larger.

Jan 6, 17 / Aqu 06, 01 07:26 UTC

how to add friends here? always like the recycle idea, favorite topic ^_^ , plastics has a relative lower melting point, easier 4 diyer, youtube has lots of video related, talented ppl sort and shred plastic for 3d printer, thought 3d printer better have the recycle module assembled, in case ppl r not satisfied with their work wanting to recycle the material and reprint,

Jan 6, 17 / Aqu 06, 01 14:46 UTC

You don't. This isn't a privacy invasive service that takes multiple metrics in order to catalogue/profile you, for direct sale or use in tracking the spread of information and/or determining the success of manipulating your opinions by controling the information the service feeds you. Amongst other shady initatives. You want that, go back to facebook.

Eventually the folks operating this will be able to figure out how to impliment basic forum features that have existed in such structures since the mid to late nineties, like a PM mechanism. Wait even longer and they might even be able to deploy a real comms protocol, offering security and authenticity to text/vid/voice - telephonic services over SIP/VOIP - file xfer and more.

3D printers are a great idea, I'll have one soon. The recycling isn't a bad idea on the face o it. The major problem, for most "home deployments" would be the energy eaten by the melting capability. This is unlikely to be rendered cost effective at residential energy prices(and difficult to provide the energy densities required in a portable format, using conventional technologies available to homes), unless using cooling of something even hotter that's running anyway to achieve the melt, or at least preheat the system. Not to mention the fumes emitted from melted plastic are probably going to go down reallly well in a residential setting. As mentioned earlier, some 3D printers can be hopper fed... these could possibly be fed the shredded material directly, skipping the most cost-intensive step(beyond using humans to sort).

Jan 12, 17 / Aqu 12, 01 15:32 UTC

just learned to use the "subscriptions" and "view my messages", convenient to dig up posts though, sometime forgot to subscribe or too many records. information feeding service u mentioned is a brainwash AI? it shapes users character and culture their hobbies as a nanny or parent? that's interesting, used to think learning modules more like an assistant or secretary who collect, sort, record, analysis, combine data, feeding u information according to need. kinda like cell signaling? reprogram cells with transcription factors, say, if install interactive education AI in prisons would help transforming "wrongdoer" to "rightdoer"? http://www.sensorsinc.com/applications/machine-vision/plastic-sorting they have near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy identifies and sorts PE-HD, PE-LD, PP, PET, PET-G, PS, PVC. some brilliant youtuber DIY their own setup

Jan 14, 17 / Aqu 14, 01 14:38 UTC

Yes, it's "shaping character and culture hobbies" - cell signalling isn't an overly poor analogy. AI is involved, but it's still very much a manual, hands on affair at a lot of levels. But their victims, I mean users, give them feedback data to improve constantly. One such document they published on this matter was: "http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full" -=- There is another more detailed one somewhere wherin they claimed an 81% success rate in causing depression in the target group. There could be potential benefits to such technologies, yes, but there's a lot of abuses, too.

The IR spectroscopy is a good suggestion, the sort of thing you display in that link I think I might struggle to build to that resolution with the things I have lying around - I imagine it isn't cheap - you mention some YT video, it may well be the same thing, but I'll do one better: https://github.com/hakkens/precious-plastic-kit/archive/master.zip blueprints etc... https://preciousplastic.com/en/ seems quite a good resource on this subject.

Jan 16, 17 / Aqu 16, 01 10:50 UTC

Thanks 4 sharing, precious-plastic-kit is one of the brilliants, can't agree more. maybe some ppl don't like the sorting procedure, consider it boring or don't like the odor of certain plastic, the loveliness of IR spectroscopy sorting is automatic, ppl can play online game or attend other business while it sorting plastic all by itself. expensive as it is, there's someway to make it acceptable, like Manu Prakash's foldscope and papperfuge, try,try,try...hoho read about the pnas article, it'll be better if show how those values r achieved, module's polynomial, relax, relax, it's not bad to learn how we respond and be effected by different information, in relatively natural state. if some volunteers were measured in a lab, knowing this is experiment therefore the reaction maybe not so natural which maybe restrained or exaggerated conscious or unconsciously. it help us learn more about ourselves, err, what's the word? knowing shortcoming is becoming strong? whatever, next time some news reach us, doubt it first hohoho