Founder Dave New demonstrates the worlds' first-ever plastic bag recycling appliance
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
Plastic bags, wraps, and packaging film are the fastest growing type of packaging, growing at around 5% a year. Much of this packaging is made from recyclable polyethylene (PE).
There is a trend to make more of this fast-growing packaging out of recyclable materials (read our recent blog post: Obaggo: A timely innovation)
But the thin, flimsy shape of the bags and wraps make them the most difficult type of packaging to collect, sort and recycle. Only a low single-digit percentage of bags are recycled.
Loose bags blow out of curbside bins on windy days, get disgustingly dirty in the back of garbage trucks, blow around on the "tipping room floor" at material recovery facilities, jam up the material handling equipment, causing costly shut-downs, and then contaminate the other recyclable commodities, particularly paper and cardboard (fiber).
It takes a lot of people to manually pull these plastic bag "contaminants" out of the recycling stream.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
Plastic bags just are a terrible shape for recycling. And because of this, plastic film material is banned from almost all recycling programs.
So we have more and more plastic film, but no new ways to recycle them. Until now!
Obaggo changes the SHAPE of your bags, from the worst shape, and into the best shape (a semi-rigid disk). This transforms the economics of collecting, sorting, and recycling this material.
If you don't have time to watch the full video, we summarize the process below.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
In the demo, we discuss the variety of packaging made from recyclable film, that can be placed in Obaggo. The list includes wrap over paper goods, bread bags, vegetable bags, mailing envelopes (labels removed), shipping pillows, dry-cleaning bags, and a lot more. These can all be recycled into an Obaggo.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
All the different film is combined and rolled into a ball.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
If you want to make the puck show a particular bag/film label, you can choose to position the label facing down when you place it into the device.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
Just press "On" to start the process.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
Obaggo will apply a little heat, and a little pressure, using less than 1 penny's worth of electricity.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
The total cycle time is about 15 minutes. It will heat for about 7 1/2 minutes (red light), then it will cool for about 7 1/2 minutes (blue light), and when the green light is on it is done.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
To remove the disk, you just open the lid and push the "eject" button. The green light will flash, and the disk will be pushed out of the device.
Click on image to watch the 5 minute demo
Grab the puck to remove. It will be warm, but not too hot. You've just made your Obaggo!
We anticipate that a typically household might make one Obaggo per week, depending on shopping habits and the packaging that comes with the products being purchased.
And it's sort of fun to do!
We discuss all the ways you can recycle your Obaggo's in our blog post: Obaggo Update: The Chicken or the Egg?
If you have any questions, please email us at info@obaggo.com.
Thanks so much!
Dave New, founder
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