We're a little more than a month (!) away from the launch of our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, where you can be part of the recycling revolution and pre-order an Obaggo appliance! We are trying to make sure everyone is fully-informed about plastic bag recycling, how it works, and why it is important. In this update, we'd like to answer another "Frequently Asked Question": What happens to the disks?
In a recent newsletter we told you about what we're doing to help you recycle the Obaggo disks that you make out of your plastic bags and wraps, to make sure they get to a plastic recycler (please see the Blog section of our website). But what do the recyclers do with them?
Many different companies recycle plastic bags and packaging film today, and each company has a slightly different technique, but these are the general steps.
The recycling process for loose bags and wraps will be roughly the same for Obaggo disks.
The first step is often to shred the bags into flakes.
Sometimes, the flakes are then washed, sorted, and dried.
Next, they are often fed into a plastic extruder machine (like the one above), which heats the material, melts it into a liquid, and converts it into pellets, called "post-consumer resin" (PCR).
Lastly, the PCR pellets can be made into all sorts of new products, some of which are themselves recyclable, including:
All-weather decking
Park benches and playground equipment
Adirondack chairs
Raised garden bed walls
Garbage cans, and recycling bins
The Plastic Industry Association's New End Market Opportunities (NEMO) project also identified the following as products that can be made out of post-consumer bags and film:
The number and types of products that can be made from Obaggo disks are limited only by the imagination.
Obaggo will be using some of the Obaggo disks we collect to manufacture compost bins, to help households divert their heavy organic waste from their garbage bin and turn it into rich soil!
Obaggo is working to create a virtuous-cycle, where diversion of plastic bag and packaging film waste creates the raw materials needed to make new products, which themselves help reduce waste, and help us live more sustainably on this planet.
Please consider backing our crowdfunding campaign by purchasing an Obaggo appliance in September!
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