Question Anyone used a WOOD CHIPPER to grind up coroplast drops?

[tedbragg]

We go through a buttload of coro, and the recycle guys charge us thru the nose to come pick up our huge pile. Anyone here used a wood chipper to grind up spent coro drops? I'm all gung-ho about it but the rest of them are worried it'll dull out the blades and stuff too quick.

I'd just like to see these mountains of mangled white plastic gone!

 

[Andy D]

Contact your local schools and offer it to them for free if they come get it & you can write it off as a donation.
I used to do this all the time with scrap vinyl, back when I used a lot of cut vinyl.
I still give away the rolls of lamination paper backing to teachers.

 

[Billct2]

I don't understand why it isn't recyclable.

 

[signage]

I don't understand why it isn't recyclable.

Most likely because we don't produce it, we import it.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

A wood chipper isnt a shredder.

 

[CanuckSigns]

How big are your offcuts? If they are large enough there are a few things you can do.
1) donate them to a local art school or summer camp

2) some animal shelters use them to line cages for some of the smaller animals.

3) use them for packaging filler when shipping out orders.

4) make small signs for some local charities that you can donate for goodwill.

 

[2B]

What CanuckSigns said, we do the same with our scarps.

we also have a "craft" box that we fill with odd cuts, vinyl, substrates, etc.. and a local group of crafters will come and buy the entire box.
It is interesting how & what they "create" with the scraps

Here is what you need to "shred"
https://www.ssiworld.com/video/plastics_fishnet_d

 

[Z SIGNS]

If the recycle people don't take why not just pitch it out with the rest of the garbage? How does shredding it make it any smaller or go away.

 

[GAC05]

I don't know about chipping coro but I do know it does not work well for shredding banners......
I am hoping they will allow me to return to my tool rental place in 2022 when my probation is up.

 

[netsol]

in the 1980's we had a client, chet, if i remember, was trying to put the ex wife in a chipper.
he ran into technical problems...

 

[tedbragg]

We CNC cut our coro signs and contour-cut letters and yard flairs to where there's barely anything left -- you wouldn't want to use these scraps, they're too cut up. Not even the crazy crafting ladies down the street will touch it. Grinding it up we could bag it and sell it to a local plastics company, but they won't take it any other way. Such a pain.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

A wood chipper will only shred it into mostly large chunks along with some smaller bits. The Fishing Net shredder looks like the ticket.
Combine that with an industrial sized trash compacter and .....

 

[Haw]

My apologies as I am not really familiar with coroplast here in my country. What material is it made from? Is it polycarbonate? HDPE, PP perhaps?

Here in our sign shop, scrap acrylics and sintra boards are fed into a shredder. Mostly any plastic that is not recyclable. They come out the size of a corn kernel and then I send them to a local company that uses them as aggregate (50% plastic & 50% sand) in making cement bricks. Then I buy them back with a very minimal discount.

The main reason I bought a shredder is to grind up HDPE and PP, for a project I have been studying for quite some time about recycling/remelting them into something more useful like plastic blocks etc.

As I can remember, a chipper and a shredder have different output results.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Coroplast = corrugated polypropylene

 

[Jeremiah]

One friend waits till he has a 40' semi full to ceiling to get rid of white plastic - at our place we use a roll off container and there is so much air that we use a backhoe to smash it down to fill it to the top. Works great

 

[Haw]

Coroplast = corrugated polypropylene

Oh! So it is PP. If I was only near, I would gladly take it off your hands.

Try to search online for the "Precious Plastics" community. There might be one in your area. Maybe you can work something out with them.

 

[letterman7]

I don't understand why it isn't recyclable.

I don't use a whole lot, but any scrap I just cut down and throw to our recycle bin. I let the recyclers figure it out. If they take PP food trays, they should take Coro.

 

[Reveal1]

Oh! So it is PP. If I was only near, I would gladly take it off your hands.

Try to search online for the "Precious Plastics" community. There might be one in your area. Maybe you can work something out with them.

Thanks for the interesting link. Maybe a good place to get rid of your coro, while it lasts, but I chuckled a bit when I viewed those Precious Plastics videos.

Watching them make their plastic products reminds me of those folks trying to make a business with the hobby level equipment packages from Sign Warehouse, or using cricket cutters. (Confession - I went down a similar route in my early days and learned the hard way) A lot of 'follow your passion and the money will come' that ignores practicality. Visions of saving the planet will eventually butt up to the reality of trying to make it economically feasible selling a small amount of overpriced products made using excessive amounts of energy and manual labor.

 

[FireSprint.com]

Most likely because we don't produce it, we import it.

Most of it is produced in the US and Canada surprisingly. It's not recycled at a small scale because plastic in general isn't recycled on a large scale anymore. Low oil prices and too much junk mixed in the recycling bins makes it no longer cost effective.