Circular Life
Natural Economy

The Circ​ular Life of Coffee Grounds and Plastic Bottles

Image Source: 馳綠 Lab22

Process of Plastic Bottles to Slippers

They will start this process by going to collect plastic bottles, clean and check whether these recycled bottles can be used. They use masterbatch from recycled plastic bottles to make slippers. These slippers need three oyster shells and five plastic bottles to make. Finally, they need to color the slippers and distribute these colors evenly in order to launch the products.

Process

Pre-Work

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Wash & Sort

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Manufacturing

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Image Source: 馳綠 Lab22

Pre-work (preparation)

First, in the preparation for making plastic bottle slippers, Ccilu urges everyone to  clean the beach together or buy plastic bottles from the scavengers to get the raw material for making slippers. Also, they need to collect the ​oyster shell on the southwestern coast of Taiwan. Through this process of encouraging people to participate in different activities, people will understand the circular economy in a deeper way and actually try to achieve it by themselves.

Wash and Sorting Process

Ccilu will select the complete PET bottle and wash off the mud barnacles on the PET bottle. Lack of sorting and cleaning to dissolve steps will result in impurities, blemishes, and masterbatches that cannot be completely colored. Smelly oysters on the beach after sun and rain can decrease functionality. These issues will cause an uneven distribution of color on slippers and decrease our products’ quality. After selection and cleaning, it becomes important to mix with plastic bottles to make slippers have an anti-slip function.

Image Source: 馳綠 Lab22

Image Source: 馳綠 Lab22

Manufacturing Process

PET bottles and oyster shells are screened and cleaned, and then granulated to become recycled masterbatches. After being melted at a high temperature of 200 degrees, they are then injected into precision molds to form one piece. Leave to foam, then spray paint. The next step is finishing after the product is formed, checking and trimming the excess parts, and checking the unevenly colored parts. Finally, it will be sent to the market.