Contaminant Removal
Floor Sweeps & Waste: A Usable Plastic Resource
Problem / Opportunity: A customer had an opportunity to purchase 40,000 lbs. of natural HIPS pellets contaminated with rocks and dirt from a ground spill at a very low price “as is.” This material also contained wire, metal, wood and several other commingled polymers that made it unusable. The customer had no idea whether or…
Ground Spill Scrap: Usable Plastic Recovered
Problem / Opportunity: 54,000 lbs. of dark gray/black ABS virgin pellets had been contaminated with wood, cardboard, dirt and rocks from a ground spill. Impact on Customer: With production now halted due to the ground spill and now contaminated material, the customer had to either immediately buy replacement prime ABS pellets or find someone who…
Irrigation Dripline Scrap: PE Polymer Recovered – Silicone Removed
Problem / Opportunity: Major manufacturers of irrigation products and services wanted an alternative to sending their otherwise unusable production scrap to a landfill. Irrigation dripline scrap cannot be reused “as is” because of imbedded thermoset silicone emitters and incompatible polymers. In addition to landfill avoidance, our customers also wanted to recover the valuable PE from…
Paper lined closures: No Burnt Paper Stink
Problem / Opportunity: A closure manufacturer had a customer switch from a blue two piece assembled closure to an orange PP closure that required a paper liner. With the orange being a specific color, when scrap was generated they wanted to maintain a color sort to reclaim the orange colored polymer. However, they had no…
Label Scrap (L-Scrap): Paper is Out – Plastic is In
Problem / Opportunity: A PET bottle manufacturer generates defect bottles with adhered labels. The labels cannot go back into the melt stream. Solution: During Butler-MacDonald’s initial sample evaluation, metal and color contaminants were found in addition to the labels. Amoung the many other things we can do, Butler-MacDonald is set up to remove metals, colors…