GB2363797A - A recycled textile-like material created from plastic waste - Google Patents

Abstract

A recycled textile-like material which is created from a fusion of plastic waste (low or high density polyethylene or polypropylene) and netting by means of a low-tech process. The process entails collecting, cleansing and sorting plastic waste, followed by chopping, melting, pressing and weaving, as shown in figures 1 to 8, resulting in the final material represented by figure 9. There are endless possibilities of fusions of plastic and netting, creating a huge variety of recycled plastic textile material.

Description

2363797 A recycled textile-like material created from plastic waste This

invention relates to recycling plastic waste Much plastic is at present recycled in industry, either available in a sheet material or in packaging.

However, these methods of recycling on an industrial scale do not allow for choice of colour, nor do they recycle all types of plastic, for example plastic milk bottle or juice bottle tops (most commonly made from low-density polyethylene) are for most recycling plants too fiddly to separate Recycling low-density polyethylene is also not cost-effective in small quantities.

My invention involves creating a recycled sheet material from waste polyethylene or polypropylene by low-tech methods The waste(fig 1), mainly in the form of lids and bottle tops, is chopped into small pieces and placed on a metal sheet, or in between two metal sheets(fig 2), and melted in an oven(fig 3) This process can also be done with pellets of factory waste.

This melted plastic can then be pressed in a press or similar device(fig 4) On cooling (naturally or by immersing in water(fig 5)) the resulting material of a flat sheet of fused plastic can be peeled from the metal sheets(fig 6) This material can then be used as it is, or it can be cut into strips(fig 7) and woven into netting (such as fruit or vegetable netting, garden netting, scaffolding net or other) (fig 8) This woven fabric is then melted and then pressed creating a fusion of the netting and plastic(fig 9), which is strong and flexible This process of cutting and re-melting can be repeated as many times as necessary, until the desired textile is achieved The weave of the netting in many cases (for example in onion sacks) can be altered and the recycled plastic interwoven only in places to strengthen looser sections of weave when fused.

Claims

1 A material created from plastic waste, fused with or without netting, made by means of a process of cleansing and sorting plastic waste by hand, chopping, melting and pressing the plastic waste to form a sheet of recycled material that can then be cut and rearranged or woven into netting before re-melting and pressing to create a recycled plastic textile.

2 A material as claimed in claim 1, wherein the properties of the netting can be used by way of changing the weave, and fusing sections of recycled plastics in certain sections, or by using the loose ends of the netting to join the material to another section, by knotting two sections together with these loose ends.

3 A material, as claimed in claims 1 and 2, wherein a pocket can be formed in between two pieces of recycled plastic, by placing a third piece of metal between two sheets of plastic before the melting process (fig 10) this third sheet of metal must be thinner than the thickness of plastic sheets being used and smaller in area than the plastic sheets, this thin sheet of metal must be wider at one end and this wider end of must protrude above the two pieces of plastic to be fused once fused and cooled this third piece of metal can be pulled from in between the plastic and a pocket is left(fig 11).

4 A material as claimxned in claims 1,2 and 3, which can be made in an even wider spectrum of colours by dying the source material before melting.