can the plastic grocery bags be recycled - used for injection moulding?
could you compress a whole lot of them into a mold to form a shape under pressure?
well, let’s see…
yep, if you look on the bottom of the bag you will (probably) see the little triangle made out of arrows (the interntional symbol for “recyclable” material) with a “2” in it. it will probably also have the letters, “HDPE” under it which is what the “2” represents.
HDPE is: High Density PolyEthylene (one word)
if you took a bunch (and we’re talking a BUNCH) of them and stuffed them into a mold, you end up with a bunch of scrunched shopping bags.
to be recycled they would have to be gradually heated to their melting point, extruded into a ribbon, and cut to pellet size for reprocessing. then they’ed be stuck back into a thin-film extruder (so something very near that process) and made back into the material that the shopping back is made from.
have you weighed a shopping bag? weigh-wise, per bag, there isn’t much there is there?
Bär + Knell made furniture using recycled plastic bags, but mixed up with other plastic waste.