Plastic waste to wealth

Hello,

Any homegrown soutions practised by folks to deal with plastic waste generated on your homestead?

Regards,
Ashish

I suppose the best idea is to avoid plastic in the first place. If you can’t, then ways to reuse as much as possible like yogurt pots reused as plant pots.

I'm in two minds about reusing plastic, I do reuse by the way but I'm not sure I should. Here we can put all plastic into the recycling if it is clean, after I have used it as a plant pot or seed tray it is not clean and will not come clean so cannot be recycled, then it has to go and be burnt.
For many of us who do not live near a large town avoiding plastic is impossible.

I’m thinking now I may have misread the original post. Judging by the thread title Ashish is looking for ways of turning his ‘Plastic waste’ into a revenue stream. Quite a different theme, and much more challenging perhaps.
I have seen various things from gift cards using found plastic as appliqué, to recycling marine waste into sunglasses. I think it will depend a lot on the sort of plastic you have available and what market you can reasonably reach.

To earn money from plastic items from homesteads, to me these items would need to be made into useful items that can be sold.

Here are some threads that might offer some suggestions:

https://permies.com/t/recycling

https://permies.com/t/93124/ungarbage/Repurposing-plastic

https://permies.com/t/60183/ungarbage/Rural-recycling

Here are some examples of things made from plastic bottles:









Those are from this thread which has several other suggestions for plastic items:

https://permies.com/t/58146/ungarbage/Pioneers-Modern-Homestead-Trash

I am sure there are many other ways to use items of plastic to generate wealth.

Check out EarthShips.  Thise folks use trash to build all sorts of things, including houses!

https://preciousplastic.com may have some tips and tricks for a business model.

Anne - I like the artwork, but personally I don't see recycling plastics into art a solution to plastic waste. It still breaks down and degrades over time - particularly if exposed to the elements - and its ultimate destination is still landfill. Worse, once it has been modified like that - with paints and other mixed materials - it becomes impossible to recycle back into raw materials.

Personally, I like to first minimise plastic waste, and then with what is left we ensure that it gets recycled in the best way possible.

Michael Cox wrote:Anne - I like the artwork, but personally I don't see recycling plastics into art a solution to plastic waste. It still breaks down and degrades over time - particularly if exposed to the elements - and its ultimate destination is still landfill. Worse, once it has been modified like that - with paints and other mixed materials - it becomes impossible to recycle back into raw materials.

Personally, I like to first minimise plastic waste, and then with what is left we ensure that it gets recycled in the best way possible.

I'm puzzled ...how would you answer the OP's question?

Ashish Mukherjee wrote:Any homegrown soutions practised by folks to deal with plastic waste generated on your homestead?

How would you generate wealth from plastic?

Plastics are used for:
1) packaging/containers
2) art/toys
3) skin/part of tools and appliances.
4) one could define nylon/ryan/polyester/etc as plastic and say it is used for cloth/clothing.
5) misc

I count wealth not just from selling things but also from not having to pay for an additional plastic item.

Packaging: using grocery bags and trash bags.
Containers: re-fill single use water bottles multiple times throughout the day.

Art/Toy: plastic bags into kites, and I there has been quite a few art/toys examples in post above. They are really good craft ideas esp if you have kids/grandkids one could make a culture of being creator vs just consumers.

Tools/Appliances: similar to making toys, one could make tools too. maybe melt plastic and use a 3D printer/mold to make cool stuff

Cloth/Clothing: if we define synthetic fibers as plastic, then it is possible to turn say a old pant into a short, maybe give it a refresher dye job.