I Melted a Bag of Milk Bottle Caps. It Came Out Ugly.

There is a lump of melted plastic sitting on my bench in Aberdeen and it is honestly a bit rank. Streaky. Slightly lumpy. One corner never filled properly, so it has a wee dent in it like a badly poured pancake.

It is the first HDPE prototype. I put it on Instagram anyway, dent and all.

That is kind of the point.

What recycled HDPE plastic actually is

HDPE is the number 2 in the wee triangle on the bottom of things. Milk bottles. Shampoo bottles. Detergent containers. And the caps, which is where I started, because the caps are the bit almost nobody catches.

It is one of the most widely recycled plastics in the world, and the reason is dead simple. It goes back. Soften it at around 120 to 130 degrees, press it into a mould, let it cool, and you get a solid piece of plastic carrying the colours of whatever went in.

No chemicals. No lab. A mould and some heat.

The awkward bit is everything that happens before the heat. Somebody has to collect it, sort it by colour and wash it. That is the unglamorous part, and it is always the part nobody wants to do. Which is exactly why the material is still going in the bin.

Why the first one is always ugly

Every product I make goes through 15 to 20 rounds of prototyping before it is allowed anywhere near the shop. The recycled climbing rope belts did. The rope keychains did. This will too.

Round one is not really an attempt at a product. It is a question you are asking the material. Does it melt evenly. Does it hold together. Does it warp on the way down.

This one warped. Brilliant. Now I know, and it cost me an afternoon instead of a production run.

I could have hidden it in a drawer and shown you the tidy version in six months. Loads of brands do exactly that. But then all you ever see is the advert, and you learn nothing about how anything actually gets made or why the good stuff costs what it costs.

Show the mess. It is far more useful than the polish.

Why bother, when I already have the rope

Fair question, and I have been asked it a few times. The rope side works. Climbing walls save their retired rope for me instead of binning it, I turn it into belts, keyrings, climbing rope coasters and dog leads, and people buy them.

But rope only stretches so far. One retired rope is a belt and a handful of keyrings, and that is your lot.

Meanwhile this country throws away milk bottle caps by the ton, every single day, and there is no route back for them either. Same problem, different material. Nobody counts it and nobody asks for it back.

So recycled HDPE plastic is the next thing I am stubborn about. Coasters first, because a coaster is a flat shape and a good honest place to learn. After that, we will see what the material lets me do.

It still has to pass the same test as everything else. If it is not genuinely good, the recycled bit means nothing at all.

If you have ever melted plastic at home, tell me how yours came out. I will bet it was ugly too.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George