Recycled Coloured HDPE

[IoannisP]

I would like to know how can I use ( reuse ) a big amount of recycled coloured hdpe . What products can I produce except of t-shirt bags? And additionaly, how can I recycle the t-shirt bags scrap (with ink) to produce recycled hdpe white? Are there any ways to remove ink from them before recycle them in the recycling maschine? Thanks

 

[btrueblood]

Tshirt bags are made from hdpe? I'd have thought they were low density stuff. Regardless, most home recyclers don't bother to try and sort colors, but just mix them and get multi-colored streaked material, it works as well as the virgin material for most stuff. I don't know of any methods to remove color tints (blended in color) from plastic. Surface colors or inks might or might not be removable, most "inks" for polyethylenes will be heat-set and thus bonded to the substrate, i.e. not a true solvent-based ink that could be solvent washed off.

 

[IoannisP]

Yes t-shirts from hdpe MMW. I want to avoid the multi-colored material. The material get colored because of the ink print on the surface of the bag. So I would like to know if there is a way to remove it before the bag(scrap) get into recycling maschine. The ink of the print is water-based. Otherwise if I can't do it then I m looking for a way (product ) I can use this multi-coloured recycled hdpe.

 

[btrueblood]

Water based? Does it wash off with soap/detergent and water? Or try other solvents...acetone would be a possibility, or alcohol. If you find a solvent/chemical combo. that removes some/most of the ink in hand washing, it wouldn't be too hard to modify a washing machine to operate on shredded bag material.

 

[IoannisP]

Yes I have already tried acetone with good results and alcohol too. Both worked fine if you scrub out the bag. But if you want a big amount of bags this doesn't work obviously. I thought of shredded bag material but how to modify a washing machine? What you mean?

 

[btrueblood]

I was thinking use a clothes washer, but that would probably only work with soap and water. You would need to figure out if shredding the bags and then tossing them into a big industrial mixer with the solvent would work...

 

[Pud]

How much tonnage of these bags have you got?


Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[IoannisP]

Pud I have or produce from t-shirt waste about 2 Tn per day. I think it's a big amount to manage. That's why I m looking for a solution that can take as much as possible from this waste t-shirt bags

 

[IoannisP]

btrueblood I have already thought of making a mixer with solvent and shredded bags. But then I need another mixer with water to wash out the shredded parts and then another tank to wash out ( finishing ) the final product. And I don't know if it will work so to start making the mixer. An idea that may work as a trial is with a coffee ( milk shake ) machine, stirring the parts continuously for some hour and then just change from solvent to water.

 

[hendersdc]

You say you want white output color, but it would seem to be much easier to get black by adding more colorant. Can you accept a black output?

 

[IoannisP]

I need white recycled as I use it again as raw material for white bags.

 

[Pud]

My suggestion would be to bale it up and sell it to a recycler to offset the cost of white virgin.


Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[btrueblood]

Wonder if a modified vapor degreasing type system (aka dry cleaning) could work. Re-use the solvent by distillation.