It is a common thermoplastic used in the production of basic daily use products. Demand for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene resin is too high in the market and is continuously growing in recent years.
As virgin acrylonitrile butadiene styrene sometimes prove to be expensive as a raw material used in manufacturing plastic products, recycling of this ABS material has come into practice. It is more economical and attractive. Recycled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene can be used as a mixture of virgin material to produce products of low cost with high value.
The process involved in recycling– It is recycled first by shredding (converting used plastics to shredded plastics). Then metal and undesired plastics are separated from shredded plastics using water system with different velocities of water streams. After the separated plastics are analyzed the recovered form of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene is again ready to be used with virgin ABS to produce a new product.
It can also be recycled by using “forth flotation” process. In this process, high purity plastics are separated by water streams from a mixture of plastics. Through this process, 99% of ABS plastic can be recovered.
Great info @ektadubey
Just wanted to add that ABS can be found in lots of places such as computer keyboards, televisions, pretty much any hard plastic inside a car and pretty much any electronic device or electrodomestic that has a plastic enclosure (blenders, microwaves…)
Also, ABS produces an awful smell so it has to be melted in a ventilated area. If burnt, the plastic will produce a very dark, thick and irritant smoke.
Hey,
Solid info is difficult. I am making a tabletop now for a client out of their own paper bins. My approach was to contact the company, whose logo is on it. No willingness to join me in the search for exact ingredients. Research on mixtures on the abs/pp mix in this case showd that the drying time and temp are a bit higher.
I have chosen to keep my oven relatively low for longer and building up pressure inside. This material was once used to produce its first lifecycle. It beeing amorphous, staying in low ranges. To me, no written reports on this, gut feeling, means that; any added color, fire retarder, or what ever, would have been added under similar conditions, otherwise that would not have been a proces in a stable amorphous state, thus uncontrolable.
Having said that i do keep my big overheaddoor wide open.
Would like to know more facts about this too, good luck
I have been finding a lot written about ABS although i’m very keen to confirm that the flame resistant eg. ABS-FR and PC-ABS-FR are able to be recycled in the same method as standard ABS without the risk of me creating more toxic fumes than the problem i’m trying to solve
The metal scrappers I know would love to have a way of getting rid of their ABS-FR and PC-ABS-FR plastic although currently nobody around will touch it unless you have 20 ton of it…… my plan is to hopefully start processing this to reduce landfill greatly although I would prefer to know it is possible to achieve as a little guy safely before I get started rather than after my doctor tells me the bad news.
Anyone have any solid info on the FR variants and whether I can process it the same as the standard ABS?
