I have a friend who may be interested in joining DMS and want to be able to tell her if she’s allowed to do her projects here.
She’s been collecting plastics like bottles, cups, Tupperware, etc. and her goal is to recycle and make them into something else. She’d want either a way to melt them down or use a shredder to shred everything. Then a CNC or laser to to cut out pieces. Can someone tell me if this would be allowed? I know with plastics the material might not be allowed for certain tools.
@keoliver is most likely the point person for this.
I’m gonna say probably no. Most of our equipment is for cutting/machining plastic and heating and bending sheets.
Bottles, cups, and Tupperware are blow molded from melted down plastic pellets. The types of plastic they use are usually PET(polyester) which creates harmful fumes when it burns. As for shredding, we don’t have a shredder like that but scissors work.
I agree with Max that we don’t have the equipment or protective infrastructure to process the recyclable plastic into a useable form, mechanically or thermally. If it can be processed elsewhere , and made into useable sheets or blocks , we have cnc machines that can make the processed plastics into other shapes as long as it is not a fiber filled composite . Lasers are likely a no go for unknown plastics or plastics with harmful off-gasses . Hope this helps .
We are building a shredder to do this exact thing!
Perfect . Once it is shredded and in sheet or block form, the equipment in plastics area can be used to make parts or objects .