Pollution to solution:Recycle fishing nets to new Pellets

Marine Pollution

Plastic pollution is a major problem for our oceans today. If you think about protecting and restoring our ocean, removing amounts of plastic is a great goal. Fishing nets are the biggest source of plastic waste in our oceans.

Apart from the amount of nylon plastic in our ocean, those nets still serve their purpose: Catching fish! With nobody at the other end of the line, those ghost fishing nets, kill marine life directly and indirectly.  

Marine mammals, sea turtles and other animals often drown after becoming trapped in lost or discarded plastics including packaging or fishing gear.

Solution

Fishing nets are mainly made from chemical fibers such as nylon and polyester to prevent rot as well as to ensure excellent strength and easy maintenance.Depending on the innovative method of recycling post-consumer plastics,we are able to enter a circular system , recycling waste plastics to new products.

Setting aside re-use or re-purposing of nets, there are generally two approaches to the recycling of fishing nets and ropes: chemical and mechanical recycling.

Chemical recycling, by depolymerization, transforms a nylon fishing net back into its virgin form, its performance is very similar to virgin nylon and can be directly applied to all types of yarns and fabrics.

Mechanical recycling, on the other hand, can be used for a range of fishing net materials, such as Nylon, HDPE and PP, as long as they are separated.Mechanical recycling is a more common process where the nets are mechanically shredded and the melted back down to pellets, for direct use or further modification to improve the properties.

Process:

collect→sort→shred→extrude→pelletize

The process is more widely available but does not result in the same high quality as the chemically recycled nets. A mechanically recycled fishing net necessarily retains the same colour as the original net and its lower quality limits its applicability to injection, extrusion and rotor moulding. Modifications need to be made in order to make the recycled material perform like a virgin material.

We are part of the solution!

Extruder is the essential equipment in the mechanical recycling process, with its functions of melting and compounding the recycled plastics with filller ,additives to improve the properties  . 

Our project coulde be  designed with either a single screw extruder , twin screw extruder or two stage.It depends on the raw material and end application.

Related products is showing a single screw extuder for melting and regranulating the recyclates and a twin screw extruder for compounding recycled PA from fishing nets with glass fiber . 

To know more details, click here ,feel free to contact us!