What can be done with agricultural plastic films, urban plastic waste, and industrial plastic scraps

For a long time, I used to think this was a huge problem — plastic waste takes an extremely long time to decompose, and in many cases, it never completely disappears. More and more plastic films are being produced, but only a small portion is sorted and recycled.

However, I now feel somewhat relieved that more and more solutions are emerging to reuse these waste plastics. They can be transformed into new products such as pallets, roofing tiles, fences, tables, and chairs.

You can refer to this article for more details：
https://presswoodmachine.com/plastic-pallet-machine/

Do you have any other creative ideas for turning waste plastic into new and useful products?

Welcome to permies Henry, I think the more sollutions available and accessible in each area, the better.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Welcome to permies Henry, I think the more sollutions available and accessible in each area, the better.

I turn that stuff into landscaping lumber, fence posts etc

This reminds me of the Precious Plastic ecosystem which is probably a more permie-friendly path to getting involved. (Smaller scale, anyway.)

Butte, I assume you have a machine that does that? That's a really cool way to recycle it!

I guess my one concern is if you're heating up a bunch of different plastics and just pressing them into a board, does the timber ever leak anything back into the soil since it had such various sources.  The plants are right there to take up any toxins.

On multiple homesteads I have "recycled" clean film plastic of various sorts like bags, bubble wrap, sheet plastic, etc. by crumpling it tightly and stuffing it into cavities in buildings as insulation. The stuff is bagged first to use loose in the open attic space.  I will probably reuse large sheets as a moisture barrier in my crawlspace. These reuses/sequestrations also address the cost of hauling the stuff a long distance to a legitimate recycler (a common issue on remote rural sites) and are budget friendly as we've now been able to eliminate trash pickup service.

I also like the idea of sequestering as much as possible inside a bottle and then encapsulating that in lime or clay. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecobricks