Currently, the world is committed to the concept of recycling plastics. This is a very challenging process because most companies have a hard time investing in recycling. This is because recycling costs a lot considering the initial investment and running cost.

This project is about the minimization of recycling cost just like the project "Cost reduction project" (https://www.herox.com/plastika-reparabilis/round/346/entry/22091).

The step by step process of plastic recycling is Collection, Sorting, Shredding, Cleaning, Melting and Making of pellets. This project focus on the cleaning step. The cleaning process is after a complete separation, the flakes or chunks are then washed with detergents to remove the remaining contamination. Once the cleaning process is complete, the clean flakes are passed through specialized equipment that further separates the plastic resin types. The plastic flakes are then subjected to moderate heat to dry. Since it is very hard to recycle plastic before removing any die or colour in the plastic, removal of this colour costs big money. This is because removing colour fast require the sophisticated mechanism and that leads to higher cost.

This project solves this problem by removing colour painting or printed colours from the plastic before the plastics end up in recycling stations. Sodium hypochlorite is a strong oxidizing agent in liquid form and is greenish or yellowish in colour. It is commonly referred to as bleach because it is the active ingredient in bleach. Its chemical formula is NaClO, composed of one sodium (Na) atom, one chlorine (Cl) atom and one oxygen (O) atom. A stronger form of Sodium hypochlorite can remove printed colours in plastics but it will need a large amount of time in contact with the colour. This project is about building a garbage bin that has a strong bleach that can clean plastic to reduce the cost that is needed to clean at recycling workshop.

As seen in the picture, the street garbage bin is simple. I have two compartments: The green and the Red. The green compartment can store the bleach and the red will store the plastic garbage. The red compartment has holes and when garbage collectors take out the trash, he/ she just pull up the red handle and the dissolved colours or the cleaned stains will remain in the green compartment with the bleach. Then the cleaned plastics will be transported to the recycling workshops or to storage. The cleaned stains can be sold to painting companies because the basic chemical makes up can be used to manufacture new ones. This process can be done while transporting the plastics and when the plastic reaches the recycling companies they do not have to go through the cleaning stage.

For more information please visit https://www.herox.com/plastika-reparabilis/round/346/entry/22564