Precious Plastic Recycling Machines

Plastic pollution has become a global issue, with clear consequences such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a manmade “island” comprised of 1.6 square kilometers of waste plastic floating in the pacific. Though we are students, we have a plan to contribute and help with this waste problem. Upon thinking of potential solutions, we thought that being able to recycle plastic somewhere local would be a good idea. We searched for potential solutions and we discovered Precious Plastic. Their solution was just what we were looking for. Precious Plastic machines can shred the plastic into small pieces that can be melted and molded into almost anything, creating new reusable plastic products such as water bottles. Though we found the idea, we couldn't just go ahead do it -  we needed funds to get the materials for our machines.  We're just high school students - enough funding won't come in time from just working a part-time job. That's where you come in. We'd like for you to help us get to our goal and take a step towards empowering high school students to save the earth.



Machines:

For now, we plan to create two machines, the shredder and the extruder.


Shredder:

Breaks down the plastic into tiny pieces. These can be stored and categorized based on the type of plastic and its varying qualities to be melted down later to be used in the extruder.


Extruder:

Outputs a steady flow of thin plastic that can be used as filament for a 3D printer or wound into different products. With our school’s 3D printer, we’ll be able to make different objects with the filament we make.


Costs:


Shredder: ~250 USD

Extruder: ~450 USD


Total: 700 USD


Contact:

Have any questions or want to help? Feel free to email us:

[email redacted]



These machines are not our designs, and will be following the designs of Dave Hakkens' "Precious Plastic" project. 


Links:

Our inspiration/the design we plan to follow: https://preciousplastic.com/en/index.html






Plastic is everywhere, it’s in every part of our lives, from computers and bottles to even coffee cups and tea bags. It’s a material that’s so important to our day to day life, yet so detrimental to the environment that just lies around in landfills and takes millions of years to break down after a single use. It’s inefficient and incredibly wasteful. Though we are students, we have a plan to contribute and help with this waste problem. With the retirement of recycling centers due to lack of profit, many people are left with plastic which can’t be redeemed for their money back. Our project aims to create a set of machines that will help break down and repurpose old plastic in an accessible and straightforward way for our school.