Interesting sawdust + plastic bags materials hack

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2010/11/29 @ 5:34 pm
Category Energy, Science

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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4 Responses to Interesting sawdust + plastic bags materials hack

Tyler on November 29th, 2010 at 5:45 pm said:

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.

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http://david.rysdam.org/blog/ on November 30th, 2010 at 4:44 am said:

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

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- DustinTWeir on November 30th, 2010 at 5:45 am said:
  
  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.
  
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rjacobse on December 7th, 2010 at 6:21 am said:

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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