Manufacturers and industrial operators in seven states can sell certain types of scrap plastic to Tennessee-based Seraphim Plastics. Seraphim is just one of many companies around the nation that make good money recycling industrial plastics. They can do with industrial plastics what curbside recycling has failed to do with consumer plastics.
The key to making money in industrial plastic recycling is a process. There are numerous ways to recycle plastic, each with its own unique process. Perfect that process and plastic recycling becomes profitable. To illustrate the point, here are the top three ways industrial plastics are recycled:
Mechanical Recycling
Mechanical recycling gets its name from the fact that each stage of the process is primarily mechanical. Seraphim Plastics practices mechanical recycling. Let’s say they buy a truckload of collapsible plastic totes from a food manufacturer. Those totes are run through a series of grinders to reduce them to small pellets known as regrind. The regrind is purchased by manufacturers who mix it with virgin plastic pellets to create their products.
Plastic (PET) water bottles are recycled mechanically as well. Recyclers can use a process similar to what Seraphim does, or they can shred the bottles to create small fibers. The fibers can be spun together to make threads which are then used in the manufacture of carpets, clothing, and industrial textiles.
Thermal Depolymerization
Mechanical recycling is by far the most popular method because it is cheap and easy to do. However, it’s one disadvantage is that the additives found in some recycled plastics may contaminate new end products. Manufacturers have to be incredibly careful about the regrind they buy if contamination could be a problem.
One way around the contamination is to employ thermal depolymerization. This process subjects industrial plastics to high heat. This breaks down the plastics to the point of separating the polymer chains that make it so strong. From there, the material can be separated from contaminants and reconstituted as new plastic. Though this process works fairly well, it is expensive. It also reduces the integrity of the recycled product.
Chemical Depolymerization
Recycling industrial plastic through chemical depolymerization theoretically returns the material to its virgin state. It is also theorized that chemical depolymerization allows the plastic to be endlessly recycled without any loss of integrity. Practically speaking, that’s not always the case.
Regardless, this process involves introducing chemical solvents that break down plastic. Combine the right solvents with the right temperature and pressure and you can reduce plastic to its individual components. This allows you to separate out the polymers from all other additives, including dyes and resins.
The result is a plastic material that is as pure as possible without turning to virgin plastic. But like thermal polymerization, chemical depolymerization is expensive. It is also a lot more complex. You really have to know what you’re doing to get it right all the time.
Recycling CFRPs
As a side note, what we commonly refer to as carbon fiber is actually a carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). In an effort to find the best way of recycling it, engineers have developed a method to reduce carbon fiber scraps to smaller pieces, combine them with a resin and, using heat and pressure, form them into panels. It would be interesting to see if a similar process would work for other types of plastic.
Plastic can be recycled. It is just not as easy as most people assume it to be. Now if we could only find a way to make it easy enough to keep every piece of plastic out of landfills and incinerators.