I have recently discovered the community where my Dad lives takes #7 PLA. Now my cynical nature says they likely don’t recycle anything and it all goes to somewhere but laying that aside.
Plastic codes: #1 PETE (PETG)
#2 HDPE (high-density polyethylene)
#3 V (PVC Vinyl)
#4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene)
#5 PP (polypropylene)
#6 (Styrene)
#7 Other (PLA and bio degradable plastics)
ABS has its own.
So I have been wondering to give waste plastic the best chance of actually being recycled (cynicism aside) it needs its code. It is made mostly of support material and skirts and such. I have been thinking that melting the waste parts in an oven (plastic and petg should be ok others I don’t think I want it in my oven) and make it into a blob of some sort. I had planned on printing the recycling symbol and pressing that print into the blob after it is removed.
Has anyone else given thought to this?
7 - PLA might land in it the compost pile, but once it gets there it won’t compost so then it’ll go over to the landfill where all the other #7’s living out the remaining 300 years of its existance… but I remain hopeful hahaha
@Michael in a proper compost facility it will break down 6 months to a year. PLA is a biodegradable material. I am not one who believes the rhetoric. It is required to be called biodegradable to actually be biodegradable. ATSM international have standards for how and what that is.
Can you just toss it in your green bin? NO. Can you compost it at home? yes IF you have a really well set up digester and enough heat in the heap. It is NOT easy however.
It it environmentally friendly, No recycling it is far better. Returning PLA into filament is at this moment not easy or cheap. Composting it is better than land fill most certainly.
Biodegradable is something the a biological process will break it down. Pure PLA is absolutely able to be broken down under the right conditions, the complex part is the conditions are usually only found in large really well balanced compost heaps that exist usually only in an large industrial setting.
I am unsure what happens to biodegradable plastic in my Dads area, if it gets composted specially, if it gets sorted for re use if it gets stuck in a container and shipped to ??? and who knows what happens there? Sadly I believe the latter I suspect it is gathered and shipped away.