Shredded (Coarse) Recycled White HDPE with labels/foil - 20 lb. box [Replay]

This is a box containing 20 lbs. of shredded vitamin/pill bottles. The plastic is white high density polyethylene (HDPE), and it includes bits of labels and foil.

Using Precious Plastics machinery, we collect and process local plastic waste. We focus on types and shapes of plastic that are problems for the regular curbside recycling system in our community, and would otherwise go to landfill. After separating plastics by type and color, we run them twice through our Precious Plastic Pro shredder.

Small bottles such as those for vitamins and medicines are not accepted by our local recycling pickup, due to problems sorting them in the single-stream material recovery facility. As a result, they normally go to the local landfill. We are partnering with local pharmacies to take this material instead.

We remove labels when they detach easily; the remainder we simply shred with the labels (and sometimes bits of aluminum foil from the safety seal). Melted and reshaped, the result is a composite material that is primarily HDPE but has these little bits of paper and foil that give it a distinct recycled character. We use this material for many projects in our own creative experiments (including injection molding and compression molding), and it is the material we used for our injection molded recycled Deluxe Dice Miner mountain.