A system and method for processing a supply of post-consumer scrap linear low density or low density polyethylene film into near-virgin quality blown film product. The method includes tearing the supply of film in a shredder, wherein the surface area of the film is exposed, including delaminating the film. The torn supply of film is washed in a water bath including a surfactant. The film is agitated in the bath containing the surfactant wherein contaminants on the film are removed from the film. The washed film is ground into smaller pieces and additional washing of the ground film in a rotating friction washer and a sink float tank occurs wherein additional contaminants are removed from the film. The ground film is then dried and compacted without addition of water into granulated objects of near-virgin quality blown film product.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament which, in various embodiments, comprises: (A) grinding recycled PET bottles into a group of flakes; (B) washing the flakes; (C) identifying and removing impurities, including impure flakes, from the group of flakes; (D) adding one or more color concentrates to the flakes; (E) passing the group of flakes through an extrusion system while maintaining the pressure within the extrusion system below about 25 millibars; (F) passing the resulting polymer melt through at least one filter having a micron rating of less than about 50 microns; and (G) forming the recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament that consists essentially of recycled PET.

Embodiments relate to a process for regenerating a polyester container and a polyester film to be used therein, which not only solve the environmental problems by improving the recyclability of polyester containers, but also are capable of enhancing the quality, yield, and productivity. The process for regenerating a polyester container comprises providing the polyester container and a heat-shrunken polyester film that wraps at least part of the polyester container; crushing the polyester container and the heat-shrunken film to obtain flakes; and thermally treating the flakes to produce regenerated polyester chips, wherein when the flakes are thermally treated at a temperature of 200° C. to 220° C. for 60 minutes to 120 minutes, the clumping fraction is 9% or less, the flakes comprise first flakes obtained by crushing the container and second flakes obtained by crushing the heat-shrunken polyester film, the heat-shrunken polyester film comprises a copolymerized polyester resin comprising a diol component and a dicarboxylic acid component, and the amount of change in Col-a (Δa) before and after the heat-shrunken polyester film is dried at 210° C. for 90 minutes is 1.50 or less, or the amount of change in Col-b (Δb) before and after the film is dried at 210° C. for 90 minutes is 1.50 or less.

The present invention relates to a process for recycling polyolefin, comprising the steps of: 1) feeding a solid post-consumer polyolefin composition comprising polyolefin and contaminants and a flow of an extraction fluid to an extractor having a pressure of 100-1000 bar and a temperature of 20-80 C. to obtain a solid extracted composition, 2) melting the solid extracted composition to obtain a melted composition, 3) providing particles from the melted composition by: 3a) mixing a flow of a supercritical fluid in the melted composition in a pressure vessel to obtain a solution saturated with the supercritical fluid and 3b) passing the solution from the pressure vessel through a throttling device to a spraying tower to expand the solution to obtain polyolefin particles in the spraying tower.

Example implementations include a system and method of using plastic from bodies of water and creating a floating platform by collecting plastic from a body of water, cleaning the collected plastic, melting and compacting the plastic, molding a plurality of hexagonal blocks from the compacted plastic, stacking the plurality of hexagonal blocks, wherein a system of springs and an energy storage device is provided between each of the plurality of hexagonal blocks, and coating the stacked blocks with a non-toxic material. Through the use of various onboard functionalities, energy may be generated to regulate temperature and provide electricity, oxygen may be supplied, and water may be purified.

Methods of manufacturing mats for use as support surfaces include mixing pre-used material with virgin material to form a blended material and forming the mat for use as a support surface from the blended material. Mats for use as support surfaces include a body having a composition of at least 30% by weight of pre-used material and the remainder being virgin material.

A method of manufacturing a wearable material made from interweaving a primary yarn of recycled sheets of plasticized material and a water-proof companion yarn is provided. The wearable material may be rendered into articles of clothing as well as protective gear such as face masks or face mask covers.

A method for manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament, the method comprising: (1) reducing a chamber pressure within a chamber to below about 5 millibars; (2) after reducing the chamber pressure to below about 5 millibars, providing a polymer melt to the chamber; (3) separating the polymer melt into at least eight streams; (4) while the at least eight streams of the polymer melt are within the chamber, exposing the at least eight streams of the polymer melt to the chamber pressure of below about 5 millibars; (5) after exposing the at least eight streams of the polymer melt to the chamber pressure of below about 5 millibars, recombining the at least eight streams into a single polymer stream; and (6) forming polymer from the single polymer stream into bulked continuous carpet filament.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament from recycled polymer. In various embodiments, the method includes: (1) reducing recycled polymer material into polymer flakes; (2) cleansing the polymer flakes; (3) melting the flakes into a polymer melt; (4) removing water and contaminants from the polymer melt by dividing the polymer melt into a plurality of polymer streams and exposing those streams to pressures below 25 millibars or another predetermined pressure; (5) recombining the streams; and (6) using the resulting purified polymer to produce bulked continuous carpet filament.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament, in various embodiments, comprises: (A) providing an expanded surface area extruder; (B) providing a spinning machine having an inlet that is operatively coupled to an expanded surface area extruder outlet; (C) using a pressure regulation system to reduce the pressure within the expanded surface area extruder; (D) passing a plurality of flakes comprising recycled PET through the expanded surface area extruder to at least partially melt the plurality of flakes to form a polymer melt; and (E) substantially immediately after passing the plurality of flakes through the expanded surface area extruder, using the spinning machine to form the polymer melt into bulked continuous carpet filament. In some embodiments, the method may include passing the plurality of flakes comprising recycled PET through a PET crystallizer prior to extrusion.