Plastic #2

Published on 11 October 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

HDPE is #2 plastic.

This can come from a variety of different items:

Bottles (clorox, pill, pop, detergent)

Irrigation Pipe

Grocery Bags

Bullet Casings

Garbage Containers

Water Pipes

At Sandhill Plastics, all our sheeting is made from 100% recycled HDPE flake, rolls or bales.

Continue Reading

0

Colored Sheets & Rolls are a unique product we make at Sandhill Plastics.

We offer any sheeting or rolls in color with a low minimum of just 2000lbs.  We can also color match any sample you may send us to ensure you receive the exact color you want.

Please allow us 4-6 weeks to process an order like this and as always, special orders require payment up front.

We run several colored products throughout the year for various customers, so inquire today if you are interested in a quote.

Continue Reading

Joplin Missouri

Published on 24 May 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Joplin Missouri.  May they find the hope and strength to rebuild their lives and move on from this tragedy.

Sandhill Plastics does have customers in this area and we are thinking of you in this time of need.

God Bless,

The Staff at Sandhill Plastics Inc

Continue Reading

Customer of the Month

Published on 15 March 2011 by Sandhill in Internal News, Plastics Tidbits

0

Customer of the month goes to Wahoo Concrete!

Sandhill Plastics has been making the patented Slat Savers for over a decade.  Mostly used in Hog Confinements, these mats do exactly what they say…they save the slat from being rotted away.  Hence the name Slat Saver!

If you are interested in becoming a dealer for Wahoo, you may contact Gaylord Anderson @ 402-443-4626.

We send our deepest thanks for the long standing business relationship with Wahoo Concrete, and look forward to doing continued business!

Continue Reading

Soap and Water

Published on 03 March 2011 by Sandhill in Internal News, Plastics Tidbits

0

QUESTION:  How do you clean the hdpe plastic sheets?

ANSWER:  Good ole soap and water!

If this doesn’t work, you may use other cleaning agents AT YOUR DISCRETION.

Thanks,

Management

Continue Reading

HDPE 101

Published on 28 February 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0
High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) is a form of recyclable plastic, that is commonly used in manufacturing of consumer products. It was invented by Paul Hogan and Robert Banks of Phillips Petroleum in 1951. Chemically, is a polymer molecule where all the atoms are linked together in a long chain. HDPE is created by a catalytic process, and is normally prepared from ethylene. HDPE’s melting point of 130 degrees Celsius and it is resistant to alcohols, acids and bases. HDPE is strong but lightweight and absorbs very little to no moisture. That’s why it is used in manufacturing of different products.

HDPE has been approved of as a product for food packaging by various institutions, including the FDA, NSF and USDA. Nowadays HDPE is used in a wide range of applications and products. From detergent bottles to milk jugs, and from the laboratory to household chemicals, HDPE products are used every where.

The good thing is that HDPE  can be recycled. Recyclable waste of HDPE is called as Scrap HDPE. They comes in all forms, shapes and colors. Before starting the process of recycling, the recyclable HDPE materials are sorted and cleaned. It helps in adding value to the quality of recycled products. Then contamination free flakes of Scrap HDPE is used to manufacture new products such as bags, plastic sheeting, plastic rolls, bottles, containers, clothing, carpet, drums, plastic lumber, etc.

HDPE is an important and remarkable substance. Recycling of this kind of plastic products will help us to keep this world clean. So, don’t throw away your plastic wastes. Just collect and put them in special bin, from which the wastes will be picked by a public or private hauling company.

Continue Reading

Fun Facts

Published on 14 February 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

Fun Facts about HDPE

  • It takes about 240 milk jugs to make one Adirondack chair
  • In 2007, the US generated 14 million tons of plastic waste from containers and packaging alone.  45% of all waste in 2007.
  • Every ton of recycled plastic bottle saves about 4 barrels of oil
  • Over 80% of US households have access to a recycling program for plastics
  • In 2006, the US recycled 2.2 billion lbs of plastic bottles for an overall recycling rate of 26% (record high)
  • In 2010, the US broke the record and recycling went up 27%.

Continue Reading

HDPE Pipe & Tubes

Published on 10 February 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

Tis the season!  Spring is right around the corner!

Attention:  Farmers, Coops, and other similar operations…..we do accept irrigation pipe and tubes.

Break off a chunk, make sure it floats and Sandhill Plastics is more than happy to take it off your hands.

Note:  We do not pick up- this all must be dropped at the facility in Kearney, NE.

Call today to arrange drop off.  800-644-7141

Continue Reading

Recycled Bottles Increase 27%

Published on 09 February 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

US bottle recycling rate rises to 27.8 percent

By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted December 1, 2010

WASHINGTON (Dec. 1, 5:30 p.m. ET) — The pounds of high density polyethylene bottles recycled in the U.S. increased for the second straight year in 2009, but the HDPE recycling rate stayed virtually flat, increasing by just two-tenths of one percentage point, to 29.2 percent.

The amount of HDPE bottles recycled increased in 2009 by 44.9 million pounds, or 4.9 percent, to 981.6 million. That followed an increase of 16.1 million pounds in 2008.

But the main reason the HDPE recycling rate is about 3 percentage points higher than the 26 percent rate in 2007 is not the increased amount of material collected. It’s that the amount of HDPE used to make bottles in 2009 was roughly 160 million pounds below 2007 levels, even after a 129 million pound increase in resin used to make HDPE bottles last year.

The recycling rate is calculated by dividing the number of pounds recycled by the number of pounds of resin, both virgin and recycled, used to make bottles

“Bottle resin use grew during the year, but did not recover to pre-recession levels,” said the 2009 all-bottle recycling report released jointly by the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers and the American Chemistry Council on Dec. 1.

The report was the first insight into HDPE recycling numbers for 2009. Data for PET that was included in the report was previously released on Oct. 20, in a report issued jointly by the National Association for PET Container Resources, the PET Resin Association and APR.

“Plastic bottle light-weighting continues,” the report said. “Many HDPE bottle applications are using product concentrates, which means an increasing number of smaller bottles — or fewer bottles made” for a specific bottle category such as laundry bottles.”

That’s good for sustainability, but reduces the amount of pounds available to be recycled, the report said.

“Recycling is dominated by weight,” the report said. “The change in total resin used to make bottles [in 2009] was a decrease in 85 million pounds” — the equivalent of a 1 percent drop in bottle production.

The all-bottle report calculated the overall plastic bottle recycling rate for 2009 at 27.8 percent, up from 27 percent a year ago, with HDPE and PET accounting for 98.8 percent of all the bottles recycled, and polypropylene another 1.1 percent.

The total pounds of plastic bottles recycled in 2009 increased by 46 million, or 2 percent, to just under 2.5 billion pounds, the report said. This was largely from the increase in HDPE, polypropylene, PVC and low density polyethylene bottles as the amount of PET bottles recycled declined slightly from 1.451 billion to 1.444 billion.

The report credited the increase in LDPE bottles collected — from 400,000 up to 1.4 million pounds — and the increase in PVC — from 400,000 up to 2 million pounds — to more all-bottle collection programs in municipalities. Specifically, there were 52 municipal program expansions/conversions to single-stream recycling affecting more that 3.7 million households.

The number of PP bottles collected increased by more than 27 percent — from 21.2 million pounds to 27 millions, largely because of more recyclers separating out PP from bales.

Again, buoyed by the drop in pounds used, the PET recycling rate in 2009 inched up slightly to 28 percent, its highest level since 1997.

However, PET resin used to make bottles dropped by 4 percent, or 217 million pounds, in 2009 on top of a drop of 5.6 percent, or 317 million pounds, in 2008. That dropped the amount of resin used to 5.149 billion pounds, the lowest level since 2005 when 5.075 billion pounds of PET were used to make PET containers and bottles.

In pounds, the amount of PET bottles recycled remained essentially flat at 1.444 billion pounds. That’s down slightly from 2008, when 1.451 billion pounds were recycled and only slightly higher than the 1.396 billion pounds of PET bottles and containers recycled in 2007.

“It is vital for the growth of plastic bottle recycling that … consumers place bottles in the proper pathways for recycling to happen,” the report said. “Too many consumers continue to be unaware of the significant usefulness, demand and value of recycled plastic HDPE and PET.”

“Municipalities also need to understand that they, too, can benefit from the prices being paid for bales of bottles,” the report added.

The other barrier to increased plastic bottle recycling, according to the report, is a “lack of sufficient access to recycling collection opportunities for product used away from home. Consumer data continue to show that the public wants additional opportunities to be able to recycle at public venues, offices, recreational sites, schools and retail establishments.”

Unlike in 2008 when HDPE reclaimers nearly tripled the amount of material they imported from 54 million to 141 million pounds in order to have enough material to process, they only needed to import 40 million pounds in 2009.

HDPE recycled resin exports increased to 234 million pounds — which represents 23.8 percent of all HDPE bottles collected and recycled. That’s up from 214 million pounds the past two years.

By contrast, approximately 725.7 million pounds — or 55.6 percent of all PET bottles and containers recycled in 2009 — were exported, almost all of it to China. That’s the fourth straight year that China has purchased more than half of the PET bottles collected in the United States.

Overall HDPE recycling capacity decreased slightly to 1.017 billion pounds in 2009 and the total utilized capacity in 2009 — that is, the amount of HDPE resins processed in the U.S. — fell nearly 10 percent to 788 million pounds from 864 million the year before.

The highest end-market application for recycled HDPE continued to be nonfood bottles at 45 percent — up slightly from the 43 percent market share they have had for the past four years. Pipe was the second-largest end-use category, accounting for 25 percent, up from 17 percent last year and two percentage points higher than in 2007.

CITED: Online plasticsnews.com

Continue Reading

Raw HDPE

Published on 05 January 2011 by Sandhill in Plastics Tidbits

0

Ever wondered why many people collect empty cans, either theirs or from the streets? When we were kids, we may have done it for the fun of it, but never considered earning some cash with it. My brother used to have his own collection of empty cans when he was a kid.

When we grew up, we discovered that things of no real value to us, or things that we consider to be just garbage or wastes, were of a great value to others. Many companies pay you for these empty cans. As well as earning you some amount of money, it also helps clean the environment and reduce pollution.

The word here is: recycled plastic material, which many places pay you for. An example is Raw Polymers Ltd., a company that does HDPE Scrap distribution and sourcing. Similar to other companies that scrap hdpe, Raw Polymers Ltd. are regularly supplying HDPE Scrap for recycling. The company proved to be very successful in supplying some of the largest plastic converters and manufacturers in various countries and continents like: Europe, Middle East, Asia and South America.

HDPE Scrap stands for High Density Polyethylene, which in simple terms means a commonly used plastic that can be recycled easily. Recycling HDPE has many uses and benefits. Companies use it for packaging; for making detergent bottle, non-carbonated drink bottles, milk jugs, water pipes, garbage containers … and many more. Come to think of it, collecting and saving our “garbage” can help us clean the environment, save the world as well as the economy too! So, as a good citizen, we must cooperate to save our environment.

Posted by Mystery on Saturday, March 22nd 2008

Continue Reading