We are needing a waterproof enclosure for our hardware. What recycled companies have you had good/bad experiences with? Any particular plastics that were better? Any other good info?
As materials and especially polymer experts, we’ve worked on dozens of recycled plastic products.
The key first is what your product is and finding the right firms to source from relative to the desired performance and other requirements.
Often, the best strategy with said supplier regards protyping and it testing materials at low to ever increasing percentages. Far easier to begin with increasing content than 100%.
Next, post industrial recycled is far more reliable and consistent in composition, performance and quality. Post industrial are the defective parts, trimming, over molding and other scrap left over from day making a part or a product at a factory. The volumes can be huge and while many recycle their own, some find it easier to collect it and sell it to a third party for reprocessing.
Post consumer is different and usually the contamination means it’s going to repurposing, day bottles to plastic lumber or hidden furniture parts often with lower performance requirements.
As a close, color is often an issue and so most are made black and then are used in hidden parts again or coextruded for example with the outer color as desired and the interior is recycled.
Happy to help.
