Our family composts all paper and cardboard. We smash all glass back into sand and make adobe bricks. We don't buy many aluminum cans. But, we're plum stuck on plastic and other metal and foil "trash." I thought I had a great idea: I tried melting all the plastic, in a bucket, over a gas burner (outside, of course.) I intended to pour the liquid plastic into wooden molds placed on top of sand, and then throw in all the metal stuff, smashed. Thought I'd get some nice and strong, sand coated plastic building bricks. Nope. All I got was a smoking, toxic bucket. The dang plastic wouldn't melt! I tried boiling the plastic in hot water. Just got clean trash. Anybody found a homesteading way of using or converting plastic and metal? By the way, it's not practical to save all the trash and drive two hours to Albuquerque to a recycling center. Help!!!!

-- brian reeves (jbreeves@plateautel.net), August 10, 2000

Answers

Brian:

Please send in an article to Countryside on how you use crushed glass to make adobe bricks. Also show us some of your building projects with them. (Locally glass goes to a landfill. I crush all of mine first so it at least takes up a smaller space.)

-- Ken S. (scharabo@aol.com), August 11, 2000.

This is something I'm currently looking into.

Here's what I know so far:

Not all plastics are the same, of course. This means that they need sorted if they are going to be reused for more than making blobs. Most plastic containers are marked with a recycling number. Some plastics burn before they melt unless they are in an oxygen-free chamber. Melting points for common plastics are anywhere from 300F to 600F (or there abouts.)

My idea is to build a solar-powered unit that will melt some of plastics that melt at lower temps and mix the plastic with sawdust to use as a building material. One other idea I had, but have no idea if it will work, is to mix finely-shredded plastic with mud to make bricks and then fire it. I'm hoping I can make a weatherproof brick without having to fire it hot enough or long enough to actually turn the clay into ceramic.

Styrofoam and some other synthetics produce a nice sticky resin when dissolved in a bit of gasoline. I've used this for patching holes in car floors and shed roofs.

A few years ago I built a small charcoal-fired blast furnace for melting aluminum to cast. I didn't do much with it before my landlady decided it was too ugly for in the yard and through it out. I'm my own landlord now so I'll build another one someday. Tin, brass and many other metals can be cast with a charcoal fire, but iron and steal would need a bigger furnace than the one I built.

Powdered glass, as you seem to know, can be used like sand for almost anything. Some of the limb shredders powder it fine enough that it won't scratch or cut you and then it can be used to lighten heavy clay soils. Glass also melts within the range of a blown charcoal fire, but will probably crack as it cools, so can't me made into much.

Most things that don't burn and don't rot can be used as filler/aggregate in concrete, especially if it's being used somewhere where you don't need all of concrete's strength.

I hope this give you some ideas. Keep us posted so we can compare notes.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 11, 2000.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I do service plastic Injection Molding Machines. The temperature range above is very general. You must find the specific material you are trying to melt. We try to control the temperature within a degree or two from the melt index for any given material. The trick is to heat the whole batch at the same time to the correct temp. Too much heat will deteriate any plastic. I guess what I am trying to say is you will not have much luck melting any plastic in a bucket and doing anything with it. You might be able to grandulate it and use it as a filler though.

-- Ed Holt (goat@sssnet.com), August 13, 2000.

some people weave plastic bags into throw rugs for the kitchen or bath.

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), August 13, 2000.

Why are you buying stuff in plastic? I live in a city with a convenient recycling program but if I didn't I'd do everything I could to avoid buying it in the first place. And then I'd save it and haul it to the recyling center - even if only once a year.

-- Deborah (ActuaryMom@hotmail.com), August 13, 2000.

I agree, I'd like to get away with less plastic, but more and more stuff that I use is either becomeing made of plastic or packaged in it or both, like Craker Jacks (yum) - used to be in perfectly recyclable cardboard boxes, now in plastic bags, so I do without. But other stuff is more vital, so I use it to death if its even feasibly useful. Soda bottle, 2-liters, etc (scrounged - we buy aluminum when we buy soda) are perfect for rooting cuttings, deep watering plants (cut off bottom and bury to the neck next to plant, a nearly invisible watering system) and greenhousing seedlings. So on and so forth. Avoid it when possible, use it to death, and then recycle it. It's the best we can do until the world comes to its senses and realizes it doesn't need individually wrapped peanut butter slices.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 15, 2000.

"Avoid it when possible, use it to death, and then recycle it." is good advice, but driving it 2 hours to a drop-off isn't recycling' it's hoping somebody else recycles it is an appropriate manner. If you can make something else out of it, then _you_ are truly recycling. This may mean melting it, or chipping it for filler, but it's at least as earth friendly' as what any factory is going to do with it. Might as well try to turn it into something useful on the farm.

One of the posters said that injection molding equipment was controlled to withing a few degrees. I have no doubt about that, but there are a lot of low-tech uses for plastics that don't require getting the plastic through the injector and into the mold in perfect condition. With the plastics sorted and sticking to the lower melting ones, you may well be able to make something useful from a bucket full of melted plastic. You won't be making your own Barbie Dolls, but fence posts or driveway stones might be doable.

In case is wasn't clear, (I should have reread my own earlier post before writing this) I gave the range of temperatures expressly to show that you need to sort plastics before melting them. Just starting with a bucket of an unknown mix will not work because of the range of temps needed to melt them--unless maybe you want to use the high-temp plastics as filler.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 15, 2000.

Soni--you can make Cracker Jacks from scratch! The recipe is in "Cheaper and Better" by Nancy Birnes. It's a great book for cooking from scratch. I recommend it to everyone. It's copyright date is 1987. ISBN 0-06-096083-3. It tastes like the real thing! Yum-yum.

-- Sandy (smd2@netzero.net), August 16, 2000.

Ken S. - our glass crushing isn't worth an article. My boys simply don goggles and smash the bottles with a sledge, inside a trash can with a concrete bottom. Once in awhile, we dump out the "sand", mix it with mud, shredded straw and other sand. Pour it in 4 x 10 x 16 (2x4) molds. Once the adobe bricks set up, we take them out of the molds and let them bake in the sun. Build walls with them. How do YOU crush your glass. We can't get it just real fine.

Paul and Ed - thanks for all the info. Now I know why our plastic wouldn't melt. How can I granulate or shred it, then? Mixing shredded plastic with mud bricks should work well. Concrete seems okay, too - but kind of a waste.

Deborah - You're right, right, right! I don't WANT to buy ANY plastic. I hate it. My wife disagrees. She loves the stuff. Talk to her. Her name is Sally.

Paul, again - I agree with your Aug.15 post. My idea is that ANYthing we bring on the farm stays there. We're responsible. So WE need to find a use for it - or don't bring it. (Used caulk tubes, empty Alka Seltzer packets, used floss, etc.

-- brian reeves (jbreeves@plateautel.net), August 17, 2000.

You can get some interesting results with plastics using a hot-air gun [paint stripper] but as someone else has said it is difficult to get the whole mass to same temp.

-- dru (dru@surf4nix.com), July 22, 2001.

While I don't a copy, I recently ran across references to a guy named Gingery and some books he made for the home do it yourself hobbyist.

One of interest to me was his Plastic Injector machine, which from the blurb talks about using soda bottles and milk bottles as the source of raw materials. http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/inject/

He also has other books of interest in the vein of metal casting/working - including a book on making your own foundry so you can melt up those metal cans.

How environmentally friendly his approach is I wouldn't know.

-- Gary Mort (gary.mort@ool.wd1.net), January 10, 2002.