Interesting sawdust + plastic bags materials hack

Energy & Sustainability Science
Interesting sawdust + plastic bags materials hack
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This “50% sawdust” project from Israel’s Kulla design involves mixing equal parts sawdust and shredded plastic bags in a mold under heat and mild pressure to produce a composite chip-board type material that, reportedly, requires no other adhesives, binders, or other components. Lots of questions left to be answered, but an interesting start. [via Dude Craft]

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8 thoughts on “Interesting sawdust + plastic bags materials hack

  1. Tyler says:

    This really isn’t that surprising, a lot of composite decking companies use a large (if not 100% recycled plastic bags in their products.
    I got to tour a company in northern arkansas (moistureshield) that uses a lot of plastic bags in their decking. Pretty much fine saw dust, melted plastic, pressure and a die… awfully simple.

  2. http://david.rysdam.org/blog/ says:

    This method seems to mainly ensure that you can’t recycle the thing.

    1. DustinTWeir says:

      You could just grind it up, add a bit more sawdust and a bit more plastic and do it again.

      You need both the sawdust to make the structure strong, but the plastic to bind everything together. Too much plastic and you’ve got a weak part, too much sawdust and you’ve still only got sawdust.

  3. rjacobse says:

    Got to thinking about this idea, and wondered about some possible variations:

    * Shredded paper instead of sawdust
    * Sand or aggregate (pea gravel, for instance) instead of sawdust

    Might have to tinker with this.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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