[greenyes] Re: Plastic Bottle frustrations

["DONNAWAY Jay" <Donnaway.Jay@no.address>]

Sealed PET bottles are indeed a hauling and processing problem.  It
takes over 120 psi across the platen for a baler to begin cracking PET
bottlenecks, and even then, intact "bottle balloons" are commonly seen
in high-density bales from two-ram balers.  There have been several
commercial machines offered, such as Marathon's Rotary Recycler, but
they were so expensive as to preclude their use for anything but
high-volume destruction of off-spec beverages.  CP Mfg. offers the
PF-1500; scaled for the individual sorting station at a MRF, as well as
much larger units, and REM sells their Perf-5
http://www.remfg.com/perf.htm#p5 .  However, none of these seem very
practical to mount on a truck.  On-board plastics compactors for
curbside sort trucks were tried and have fallen from favor for good
reasons- inability to burst closed PET being one of them.  One vendor
offers a specialized truck-mounted vacuum-fed auger for plastics
collection that claims 8:1 permanent reduction.
http://www.haulall.com/english/default.asp
 
Rural and nonprofit recyclers have applied their unique ingenuity to
this problem over the years, one OSHA UNAPPROVED method that comes to
mind involved a Skilsaw strapped inline to a PVC pipe.......
 
Especially with regards to the aforementioned method, no listing herein
should be construed as an endorsement!
 
Jay Donnaway
Sr. Solid Waste Policy Analyst
Oregon Dept of Environmental Quality
Land Quality Division
811 SW Sixth Avenue
Portland, OR 97204-1390
(503)229-6046
Fax: 229-6977
donnaway.jay@no.address
http://www.deq.state.or.us <http://www.deq.state.or.us/>