Shredding
Once the plastic is sorted by their specific plastic type, DiscoverBrands then shreds the plastic using a shredder machine. At this stage, bigger plastic objects are chopped into smaller flakes/granulates to reduce its size for easy storage and be used easily with other machines. We either separate plastic by color or mix different colors (of the same SIP number(Society of the Plastics Industry)). Once plastic is shredded, it is then stored in provided transparent buckets so that one is able to see the color and nature of plastic. Buckets are labeled with respective SPI code so that they don’t get mixed up.
Extrusion Machine
This machine is a very powerful machine and creates unique products and can run continuously. With this machine. The team creates filament, granulate or get creative working with molds. It is also great for educational purposes as the process is straightforward and so easy to understand. It blends differently colored plastics together and the output is a homogenous and smooth color, for example is you mix
white and black plastic flakes, you will get a smooth and nice grey color. We at DiscoverBrands uses this machine mainly to produce (and not limited to) kit boxes and plastic sheets from waste plastic.
Injection Machine
This is rather faster machine that allows DiscoverBrands to venture in small productions depending on the barrels volume but faster and very precise objects. The output color is unpredictable when mixing colors in the barrel allowing for patters which are surprising and can add to the beauty of the end-product.
Compression machine
This machine consists of an electronic kitchen oven to heat the plastic and a carjack to apply pressure to the mold to have the desired shape. The team says the process is generally slower but it allows bigger objects to be crafted. The team says that currently precious plastic Netherlands is improving this type of machine to make sheet press to create big sheets of plastic that can further be treated with other techniques to make new products.
Product Finishing
In this step, the DiscoverBrands team does the finishing where the product is made more apealing to the eyes and touch. This also includes the ergonomic factors of the end-product during use. Safety, beauty and communication aspects are also highly considered in finishing of products.