Blog du Wren

Recycled Plastic Christmas Ornaments

Early in the pandemic, with all of our juggling gigs evaporated, I was struggling for projects to fill my time. Through my YouTube meanderings, I stumbled on the concept of melting down plastic and reshaping it for useful purposes. The videos either weren't overly specific or required tools I didn't want to invest in, so I ended up learning a lot through trial and error. Della loved the project as it got me out of her hair while she worked on her coloring book and I loved the project for its hands-on recycling nature. The project proved furtherly useful as a much needed diversion through 2021 and beyond.

This year, however, I wanted to do something more than experiment; I wanted to make something useful. I came up with the idea of making these Christmas tree ornaments and my mission was born. Through lots of trial and error, some help from a friend with a fancy machine, and a little digging through other people's trash, I'm very pleased with the results.

First, a little about the process:

I worked with a friend that has a CNC (computer guided router thingy) to carve the design out of a block of aluminum. We went through a couple iterations to figure out depth, angles, etc.
I harvested lots of #2 (HDPE) plastic recyclables like milk jugs, laundry detergent containers, contact solution bottles, 5-gallon paint buckets, etc.
I cut the plastic down to shreds, extra small* for the foreground color and less small* for the background color.
I loaded the plastic into the mold and the mold into the toaster over set to 380°, first just the foreground plastic, carefully arranged, for ~15 minutes and then piled on the background plastic for another ~20 minutes or so.
Once everything is nice and melty, I sandwich the mold halves together and crank them down in the vice and clamps.
Then it's simply trimming off the ooze out, drilling a hole, and tying the string and it's ready for delivery.

A few observations on the process:

Air bubbles on the surface can be minimized with cutting the initial layer super small and making sure it is melted before adding more plastic.
Try as I might, I couldn't get the exact coloration that I wanted. Perhaps with more finely ground plastic, I could manage the color bleed a little, but overall, I liked the little bit of variation.
Don't underfill the mold or else you won't have anything to pry the ornament out against :-/
Different #2 plastics melt to different states of ooziness and stickiness. This surprised me, as I assumed all #2 would be the same.
The mold, being a big hunk of metal, takes a long time to warm up (esp. if it's been left in a cold cold garage) but also a long time to cool down meaning I was only able to crank out about 4 of these per day.
Even after dialing in my technique, I was still only had ~85% success rate, either due to bubbles, non-desirable color bleed, insufficient melting, etc. I've got a whole pile of "factory" seconds.

I'm really pleased with the final product as well as the process. I'm grateful to be able to pass them out this holiday season as a way to connect with friends with the implied inclusion of Della. If I wasn't able to get one to you and you want one, e-mail me; I'd love for you to have one. And if you have any questions about recycling #2 HDPE plastic, let me know about those too!

Tuesday December 19 2023

File under: holidays, misc

Toggle Comments (2)

comment?

on Mon 25th Dec, 2023 12:26 am CST Andrew said:
Love it!
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on Sun 31st Dec, 2023 02:42 pm CST Horge said:
I'd love to have one or three, and for myself I don't mind a factory-second, so it doesn't go to waste. However, I'd prefer it be hand-delivered by Santa's juggler-elf
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