A Local Solution to Plastic Pollution
Date
2023-12
Authors
Quinto, Michael
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Abstract
Plastic pollution is a well-known issue across the globe with staggering facts such as: “Only 9% of all plastic produced has been recycled,” and “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating island of plastic waste spanning an area that is over twice the size of the state of Texas.” Locally, this issue persists as 73% of Texas resident’s recycling bins go to the landfill and most municipal recycling facilities only recycle two types of plastic. The driving question behind my capstone was: How can we as consumers take plastic recycling into our own hands? Over the past three years, I have been working to build a plastic recycling workspace on campus. Using the available equipment in the Ingram Hall Makerspace I have built a series of small-scale recycling machines to process plastic for recycling. Using compression and injection molding techniques, we can take post-consumer plastic waste and repurpose it into new products. But there is more work to do like improvements to the machines and optimized processes that future Texas State students can tackle in the next three-to-five years.
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Keywords
plastic, recycling, precious plastic, plastic recycling, shredder, plastic shredder, Texas State University, Ingram Hall makerspace, bobcats repurpose
Citation
Quinto, M. (2023). A local solution to plastic pollution. Honors College, Texas State University.