JPH08108168A - Product having resin part - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a product in which the materials of resin parts can be discriminated at a glance in the regeneration treatment of the resin parts. CONSTITUTION: When the exterior cover 1, front door 2, and press plate 3 of a product comprising a copying machine are made of the same kind of thermoplastic resin, they are marked with the same color in order to clarify the kind of material. The resin parts with different materials are marked with different colors. In this way, many resin parts can be discriminated easily by kind of material.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a product having a plurality of resin parts made of thermoplastic resin.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A large number of resin parts are used in many products such as automobiles, airplanes, image forming apparatuses such as copying machines, printers and facsimiles, and toys.
Under such circumstances, particularly recently, the emergence of products having excellent recyclability has been strongly demanded for the purpose of environmental protection and further resource saving.

Therefore, the resin parts constituting each product as described above are made of a thermoplastic resin, and when the products are used up, the parts can be reused without discarding the resin parts. It is being appreciated. For example, the used thermoplastic resin parts are crushed into pellets by a shredder, and the pellets are heated and melted to be molded again as some parts, and the recycled molded product is reused.

At this time, a problem is that the materials of a plurality of resin parts constituting a certain product are not all the same. If resin parts made of completely different materials are reclaimed together, the properties of the completed remolded product, such as mechanical strength, may be significantly reduced, and this may be unusable. Therefore, in order to recycle each resin part, it is necessary to first divide all the resin parts by material and crush and regenerate each separately. However, since it is not possible to determine the material of each resin component at first glance, it is very difficult to classify a large number of resin components by material.

If all the resin parts constituting the product are made of the same material, it is not necessary to separate the resin parts by material when the product is recycled, and the work is greatly simplified. be able to. However, since each resin component constituting the product is required to have its respective predetermined function, it is not possible to manufacture all the resin components with the same kind of resin. For example, in copying machines, various resin parts such as gears, bearings, pulleys, and other elements related to the drive system, the frame that constitutes the main body, and exterior covers are used. It is not appropriate that all these elements are made of the same resin material because they have different characteristics such as rigidity, wear resistance, heat resistance, and dimensional stability. In terms of cost of each element, it may be necessary to change the material of each element.

Therefore, there has been proposed a method of displaying the material name on each resin component constituting the product. For example, when the main component resin that composes the outer cover of the copying machine and the pressure plate that holds the original is both polyphenylene ether (PPE), indicate the material to each of these resin parts> PPE
If the main component resin of the gear and the bearing is polyoxymethylene (POM), the resin component is marked with> POM <. With this arrangement, when the copying machine is dismantled to recycle it, the exterior cover and the pressure plate indicate that> PPE <indicates that they are made of the same material, and that the gears are the same. With respect to the bearings as well, it can be known that these materials are the same from the display of> POM <written on them. Therefore, the parts of the copying machine can be easily sorted by the same material, and the reprocessing work can be simplified.

However, the following drawbacks cannot be avoided simply by indicating the material of each resin part. Each time, the material of the resin component cannot be confirmed without looking at the display of the resin component, and the confirmation work takes time. In some cases, a small resin component cannot be labeled with its material. Even if it is possible, the display itself is of course extremely small, so that it takes more time and effort to confirm it.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a product having a resin component whose material can be confirmed by simply glancing at the resin component by eliminating the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks with a simple structure. It is in.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a product having a plurality of resin parts made of thermoplastic resin, in which resin parts having the same main component resin are made to have the same color. Propose a featured product.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a copying machine which is an example of a product having a plurality of thermoplastic resin parts. This copying machine includes an exterior cover 1 of its main body, its main body frame (not shown), a front door 2 pivotably attached to the frame, and a document holder provided on the upper portion of the main body so as to be openable and closable. Pressure plate 3 and a gear (not shown) housed inside the main body,
Although it has a large number of parts such as a bearing, the exterior cover 1, the main body frame, the front door 2, the gear and the bearing are all made of thermoplastic resin here. Thus, FIG.
The copying machine shown in (1) is a product having a plurality of resin parts made of thermoplastic resin.

The exterior cover 1, front door 2 and pressure plate 3 are made of, for example, polystyrene (PS), acrylic butadiene styrene (ABS), polyphenylene ether (PPE).
In many cases, the main component resin of these resin parts is made of acrylic butadiene styrene (hereinafter referred to as ABS). On the other hand, the main component resin of the main body frame is made of polycarbonate (hereinafter referred to as PC), and the main component resin of the gear and the bearing is made of polyoxymethylene (hereinafter referred to as POM).

As illustrated above, in the resin part of the copying machine shown in FIG. 1, the same main component resin as the constituent resin and the different main component resin are mixed. All resin parts having the same component resin have the same color.
That is, in this example, the colors of the outer cover 1, the front door 2, and the pressure plate 3 are all the same color, for example, blue. Further, since the main component resins forming the gear and the bearing are also the same, the color of these resin parts is unified, for example, white. The body frame is, for example, black. In this way, each resin component is color-coded as described above by the background color of the thermoplastic resin constituting the resin component or the coloring with the pigment added thereto.

When the copying machine shown in FIG. 1 is used up, the copying machine is brought in from a user to a recycler and dismantled there. At this time, since each resin part of the copying machine is color-coded according to the type of the main component resin that constitutes them, the dismantling company can immediately know the material by glancing at the resin part. it can. The same applies when the size of the resin component is extremely small. For example, the exterior cover 1, the front door 2, and the pressure plate 3
Immediately knows that the main component resins that make them up are both ABS because they are blue, and because the gears and bearings are white, these main component resins are POM.
You can immediately know that. Further, since the main body frame is black, it can be immediately known that the main component resin is PC. Therefore, each resin part
It is possible to extremely easily sort each material, and to recycle each sorted resin component. In this way, a regenerated molded product can be obtained very simply, and the properties of the molded product can be maintained high. This is because it is possible to recycle a molded product only with resin components having the same main component resin. Here, the resin component having the same main component resin includes a case where the plurality of resin components are made of exactly the same kind of resin and a case where the substances other than the main component resin of the plurality of resin components are different from each other. It is natural.

If all the resin parts constituting the copying machine are made to have the same color as the resin parts having the same main component resin, they can be recycled most easily, but they can be recycled or easily recycled. Only for resin parts,
The resin components having the same main component resin may have the same color.

It should be noted that which thermoplastic resin and which color to use may be independently decided by the manufacturer of the product, but if this can be internationally standardized, it will be easier to carry out the product recycling process. You can

Further, as described above, when each resin part is color-coded according to its material, and a display showing the material, for example> PPE <,> POM <, is applied to each resin part, the result is further enhanced. It is easy to identify the resin material.
Further, a display other than such a character display, for example, numbers, pictograms, symbols, etc., may be provided on each resin component to make it easier to distinguish the material of the resin component. In this way, numbers, pictograms, and symbols can be easily displayed even on small resin parts.

In addition, a substance other than the main component resin, for example, a filler such as oil or glass fiber or a reinforcing material is often added to the resin component. However, if the type of the above-mentioned additive substance and the amount of the additive substance are different, the characteristics of the resin component are somewhat different. Therefore, by unifying resin parts with the same main component resin to the same color, and applying symbols, numbers, characters, or pictographs indicating the amount and type of the added substance to each resin part, the main component resin will be Even among the same resin parts, the difference in their characteristics, usually the difference in their grades, can be immediately discriminated, and the recycling process of the resin parts can be further facilitated.

For example, assuming that the resin components 4 and 4a shown in FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b) have the same main component resin and different kinds of additive substances, the two resin components The parts 4 and 4a have the same color, one of the parts 4 is integrally formed with a symbol such as a projection 5, and the other part 4a is formed with a symbol such as a groove 5a. By doing so, it is possible to know that the main component resins that make up both parts 4 and 4a are the same, but the types of the added substances are different, and in response to this, a more detailed regeneration process is performed. be able to.

Further, in the gears 6 and 6a shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, if the main resin is polyoxymethylene (POM), the colors are the same. When the amounts of the added substances are different, the symbol consisting of the protrusion 7 is integrally formed on the one gear 6, and the symbol consisting of the concave groove 7a is formed on the other gear 6a.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the protrusions 5, 7
When the symbols such as the grooves 5a and 7a are used, there is an advantage that the contents of the symbols can be understood only by touching them with a hand.

For reference, when a plurality of resin parts are crushed and melted to obtain a regenerated molded product, if the resin parts are made of mutually compatible thermoplastic resins, Even if the types are different, it is possible to maintain the high characteristics of the finished remolded product. For example, polycarbonate (PC) and acrylic butadiene styrene (ABS) are resins that are highly compatible with each other. Can be kept high. Therefore, it is also possible to unify the resin components having the mutually compatible resins as the main components with the same color and to regenerate them together during the regenerating process. Here, that the thermoplastic resins of the plurality of resin parts have compatibility with each other, the molded product obtained by regenerating these is a property that can withstand the use when used for its original purpose. This means that the thermoplastic resins of the plurality of resin components before the regeneration are compatible with each other to the extent that they can be maintained.

[0023]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the main component resin of each resin component can be immediately discriminated regardless of the size of the resin component, and the recycling efficiency of the resin component can be greatly improved. be able to.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a copying machine which is an example of a product.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example in which a symbol including a protrusion and a groove is formed on a resin component.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an example in which a symbol including a protrusion and a groove is formed on a resin component including a gear.

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 resin parts 4a resin parts

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A product having a plurality of resin parts made of thermoplastic resin, wherein resin parts having the same main component resin have the same color.