recycle plastic waste

I thought I might mention www.preciousplastic.com in this forum.

The philosophy of preciousplastic.com was:

1. Develop machines to recycle plastic--designed so
the machines could be built using basic tools and materials.

2. Share the blueprints online--for free--open source.

3. Provide people the knowledge to recycle local plastic
waste into a variety of usable and saleable items.

The instructional videos are on the website and also
on Youtube.  The site has all info in a zip file for download.

Here is the intro video:

I've seen this before! I think it's really cool that they turned this concept into a business model, though my focus is generally advocating for less dependency on plastic in general.

I'd love to know the solution for that super common thickness of plastic you see with packaged foods like cheese and meat - plastic wrap type stuff. It's so thin, I wonder if there's an eco-friendly way to break it down, without releasing toxic gick?

Very interesting series of videos. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to permies!  That's a cool idea!  It would be great if they could convince small towns without recycling available to look into this.

That is really cool, thanks for sharing!  

(Note this guy is working in an open garage type space - don't be mucking about with melting plastic in an enclosed space.)

Thank YOU! My better half had some plans on recycling #2 into making a deadblow hammer so some plastic jugs that were too misshapen to be cut into cloches or other things were put in bathroom for wee hour shredding, and I have produced enough for his hammer.... being in one of those areas were recycling is pretty hard (too far to haul stuff) this is great. Past great, magnificent. Yes it looks like he's in well ventilated area, and I bet some nice big fans too (I would have forced air ventilation definitely)

I have melted both #2 and #4 plastic in an oven before, and you don't really smell it unless it starts to scorch. I have read that #1 burns quite cleanly, so the fumes may not be so bad on that one either. Now vinyl on the other hand...
I saw Precious Plastic on a different Permies post several months ago, and it really is an exciting idea! They are working on developing version 3.0 over on the Precious Plastic forums.