A Guide to Recycling Plastic Safely

every now and then we get a few comments asking about the safety of recycling plastic at home okay maybe more than a few all right all right fine we'll do a video on it [Music] [Applause] this video is sponsored by blinkist understand the most important ideas from a huge range of books in just 15 minutes so a running theme in the comments section or when we talk to others about recycling is that a lot of people tend to refer to plastic As One material but in fact there are so many different types and grades of plastic and this is an important factor when it comes to thinking about how safe a plastic is to work with some Plastics can be recycled very safely but there are others that we would never go near now as you may already know we are not molecular scientists or chemical Engineers speak for yourself [Music] pretty good scientists but we do have a decent amount of experience and we've learned a lot about the safety aspects of plastic squishing over the last three years [Music] the first thing that we need to clarify and is probably the most important thing of all is that we're melting plastic and not burning it every single plastic is highly toxic when burnt which is where we think a lot of the confusion comes from with plastic safety as long as you know the correct melting points of the Plastics you want to work with you can work with these safely oh um not all of them actually like we mentioned already there are many different types of plastics and each of these have their own different melting and burning temperatures if you were with unseparated plastic then there's no way to accommodate all of these different melting temperatures at once meaning that some will burn before others are fully melted we hand separate all of our plastic to make sure we're not mixing it into different types which is the only way to ensure that we're doing it completely safely this is why it's so important for plastic manufacturers to add the resin ID logo onto any plastic product made to make sure that it can always be identified well they should really just stop using plastic in the first place yeah stop the plastic yes they should not only are plastic manufacturers the absolute worst for still using Virgin plastic but a lot of them don't even mark their products with the correct resin codes making it extremely difficult to sort it all out properly now there are some ways you can identify plastic at home and we are planning a full video on how you can do this we recently received this plus tail from a company called matoa which is a device that can scan a piece of plastic and identify what type it is game changer I've also very kindly offered Brothers make viewers five percent off their plas tail device use code Brothers make 16 or pop a link with all the instructions of how to use it in the description below [Music] okay let's say you've meticulously separated all of your plastic no more fumes right no wrong Foods sticky labels or residue from the contents can burn whilst you're heating the plastic these can create some potentially very harmful and some pretty gross smelling fumes mesh bags in the washing machine are a great way to clean loads of bottle tops all at once for other items like bottles we simply cut them in half and then wash them by hand [Music] so much like we're trying to distill all of the information that we know about plastic safety into one concise video today's sponsor does the exact same thing but with books and podcasts blinkist allows you to understand the important takeouts and Concepts into a series of short blinks which cover a whole range of topics from over 5500 non-fiction books and podcasts you can tell they've really taken in and understood each book and then reproduced it in a 15-minute bite-sized version which is both entertaining and actually really easy to understand for us it's been an awesome way to start our day as we can listen to one together on the way into the workshop which we think is way better than listening to the radio the latest one that we listened to was how bad are bananas by Mike burners Lee who essentially calculates the carbon footprint of pretty much everything for example did you know that the carbon footprint of a 500 mL bottle of water is over a thousand times greater than that of tap water it also gives you a load of ideas which are easy to implement on how to live a Greener lifestyle which is something that we're definitely trying to do this year they've also just launched a brand new feature blue connect this feature allows every premium user to share their account with someone else like a partner or a friend so if you fancy giving blinkist a try you can start your seven day free trial by going to blinkers.com forward slash Brothers make and if you like it as much as we have they're offering Brothers make viewers 25 of blinkers premium where you can enjoy two memberships for the price of one with linkers connect thank you so much to blinkers for sponsoring this video now on to the next part of plastic safety temperatures so now you have your beautifully clean and sorted plastic ready to go the next thing you need to think about is your melting temperature we've shown a number of different ways that you can recycle plastic on our channel so if you're new here a good one to start with would be our Seven Ways video which we've linked down below the important thing to remember here is you want to apply the lowest amount of heat for the shortest period of time this brings us to the reason that we love using HTTP on a panini press so much HTTP will start to melt around 120 degrees Celsius but the ideal temperature window to work with it is between 180 and 260 degrees the maximum temperature that the plastic has ever gotten to on our panini press is 180 degrees which is right at the bottom of this range and because there is direct heat from both the top and the bottom the plastic melts quickly and efficiently however it is not the perfect tool for other types of plastics more on that in a minute there's lots of information available online about the melting temperatures of different types of plastic precious plastic have made this really handy poster which is available to download online we'll link this below and just gives you a nice visual representation of the different melting temperatures right now let's talk about the big one fumes actually called volatile organic compounds there are two things to consider for each type of plastic when you're looking at the fumes they give off the amount of fumes that they make and the toxicity of those fumes you can't just look at one of these in isolation as it doesn't give you the full picture again the clever people over at precious plastic have created this lovely chart which shows you the different amounts of fumes made by each different type of plastic looking at this chart you might be thinking lovely I'm gonna stick to recycling just these four types of plastic that sound good dog um no that's completely incorrect what are you doing now it's Sudoku the one time I need you I have a seven if you take PVC as an example the fumes created are so horrendously toxic to both humans and the environment that you should just never work with him we certainly don't so the safest Plastics to work with are polypropylene and polyethylene which includes both HDPE and ldpe both of these produce low amounts of fumes and the fumes that they do produce are non-toxic so they can be recycled at home safely assuming that the plastic is clean and melted at the right temperature clean additive free HDPE is the safest plastic you can work with but definitely think about the source of the plastic for example if it's a container that contains chlorine you should absolutely avoid that also plastic that was designed to live outside may have UV stabilizing additives which is also something to consider this is why we love working with milk bottle tops and shampoo bottles because they're super easy to clean and safe to melt we've had a lot of schools message us to say they're using our techniques to melt plastic in the classroom which we think is absolutely brilliant and we get a lot of teachers asking us for safety information around this to make sure that it's safe to do in lessons we've recently worked with clear apps to help them produce a guidance document a risk assessment about hdb recycling so if you work at a school you should be able to access this let's tackle another hotly debated Topic in the YouTube comments do you need to wear a face mask when melting Plastics respirator respirator the answer well it depends it will come down to three things the type of plastic you're melting the temperature that you're melting it at and how good the ventilation in your area is let's look at our panini press as an example using HDPE means no toxic fumes as long as it's clean and we don't burn it using the panini press keeps the temperature nice and low in our case we tend to keep a window open to make sure it's well ventilated which keeps any potential smells at Bay taking all of this into consideration we would say that a respirator isn't necessary but say you just changed one of those things then you'll need to reassess whether you need one for example if we stick with httpe but swap out our heating method from a panini breast to something like one of our injection molding or Extrusion machines then this could change things a bit the reason is is that we run these machines at a slightly hotter temperature so that we can make products faster at 230 degrees Celsius we're still within the safe window but there is a higher chance of plastic getting stuck in the barrel and being heated for longer than we want therefore personally we choose to use respirators when using these machines as we tend to be using them from extended period of time you could also use a fume extractor to reduce the fumes at the source these machines suck the fumes away and pass them through a carbon filter to kill off the toxic stuff the one we're using comes from plastic Runner normally we tend to use all three methods just to be safe A well ventilated workspace a fume extractor and a respirator this way if we decide to work with a material such as polystyrene that gives off morphemes we know we're safe and protected also the face mask respirator and filters that you choose are super important you can't just use a regular dust mask you need ones with special filters that will capture any potential nasty fumes the ones we always use and recommend are called abec one filters which fit onto a standard 3M respirator these filters will protect you for 40 to 50 hours before they need replacing make sure that you get a face mask that fits you really well with no leaks we also like to store ours in these airtight containers to ensure that the filters last as long as possible well there you go folks hopefully that gives you a bit of a guide when it comes to safety with DIY plastic recycling we're sure that with new research and your input then there's probably loads of more information on this topic that we haven't covered we'll be sure to include any of the biggies in the description below as and when we hear about them so be sure to keep an eye on that for updates Master thank you to you guys for watching and to blinkist for sponsoring this video be sure to check the link in the description if you're interested oh and there's there's one more here we go there's one more thank you oh you know it's the Brotherhood thank you so much guys uh thank you so much you are the ones keeping our Workshop lights on we love you mwah see you in the next one guys [Music] ah surprise I am Dr plastic you impressed aren't you oh prop budget good isn't it bye

Channel: Brothers Make

Views: 68,191

Keywords: is burning plastic dangerous, is burning plastic dangerous to humans, diy plastic recycling melting, can you melt plastic with a soldering iron, brothers make, dangers of burning plastic, how to melt plastic, what kind of plastic can be recycled, homemade recycled plastic products, how to recycle plastic, how to melt plastic at home, how to work with HDPE, recycling projects for school, HDPE, hdpe recycling, hdpe melting, how to melt milk bottle tops, diy plastic recycling

Id: EZekQTq0OqA

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 25 2023