Soda bottles are horrible candidates for recycled plastic. They need to hold up to a decent amount of pressure and then need to last under those conditions for like 6 months.
You can make a have decent textile out of it. You can make a subpar 3D printing filament out of it.
I think the best use I’ve seen is to use it as an additive to plastic decking. It’s one of the uses where the color and texture changing won’t be noticed.
A lot of other plastics are a hell of a lot easier to reuse in other situations, But for pressure you can’t beat PET and a PETE for cost.
Follow up: why are soda bottles hard to recycle? You suggest it has something to do with their ability to hold pressure. Why does that make them hard to recycle?
They recycle plastic be either hitting it with a shitload of heat/pressure and turning it in an oil (that doesn’t make a good plastic) or by chopping it up, heating it up with a bunch of dye and forming/forcing it into lawn furniture.
HDPE, ABS, PLA are soft and melt nice, they kinda fall apart easily at temp. They discolor, but they stay structurally consistent. PET/E doesn’t turn into chewing gum when it gets hot, you can stretch it into fibers and they kinda stick together when you need them. Even using it as 3d filliment is hit or miss consistency+wise.
Soda bottles are horrible candidates for recycled plastic. They need to hold up to a decent amount of pressure and then need to last under those conditions for like 6 months.
You can make a have decent textile out of it. You can make a subpar 3D printing filament out of it.
I think the best use I’ve seen is to use it as an additive to plastic decking. It’s one of the uses where the color and texture changing won’t be noticed.
A lot of other plastics are a hell of a lot easier to reuse in other situations, But for pressure you can’t beat PET and a PETE for cost.
Follow up: why are soda bottles hard to recycle? You suggest it has something to do with their ability to hold pressure. Why does that make them hard to recycle?
They recycle plastic be either hitting it with a shitload of heat/pressure and turning it in an oil (that doesn’t make a good plastic) or by chopping it up, heating it up with a bunch of dye and forming/forcing it into lawn furniture.
HDPE, ABS, PLA are soft and melt nice, they kinda fall apart easily at temp. They discolor, but they stay structurally consistent. PET/E doesn’t turn into chewing gum when it gets hot, you can stretch it into fibers and they kinda stick together when you need them. Even using it as 3d filliment is hit or miss consistency+wise.