Recycled drink cartoons latest materials for strong chipboard
THE next time you’re tired, try sitting on a carton of milk — or rather a chair made of recycled drink cartons.
Tetra Pak’s pilot project in Germany has developed the technology for turning shredded drink cartons into chip-board for furniture.
Mrs. Grethe Andersen, who is in charge of environmental affairs at Tetra Pak Pacific, an international company which specializes in the packaging of liquid food in cartons, explained how the drink cartons are recycled.
Used cartons are brought to the factory where they are passed through a feeding station which shreds the cartons into fine bits.
The shreds are then placed into shallow moulds, compressed with weights and then baked to temperatures of up to 170 degrees Celsius.
The semi-finished board is cooled and cut into various shapes and sizes. Mrs. Andersen said that the recycling process was safe and posed no hazard to the environment:
"No environment-threatening additives or chemicals are used as the plastic coating on the cartons melts during the heating process, binding the shredded carton bits together."
The chipboard, as strong as the conventional kind made from plywood or wood chips, can be utilised for a whole array of products, from brief cases and furniture, to building construction.
But Mrs. Andersen cautioned that the project is still very much in the experimental stage and that the chip. board will have to pass very stringent quality control tests in Europe before it can be used for building purposes.
The Tetra Pak chipboard was one of the exhibits at the Environworld 91 exhibition at Hall 5 of the World Trad Centre, Singapore’s first large-scale International exhibition aimed at protecting the environment.
Source : The Straits Times, June 28 1991
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