Topics in Sustainability: Recycled Content And Nylon Materials
We see recycled materials every day, and many of us organize recycled materials in our own home to make sure they stay out of waste channels. Around the world, systems to collect these plastics and bring them back into manufacturing supply chains as raw materials help us reduce our footprint on the world’s waste. But even though the symbols and numbers on your plastic bottles and packaging are familiar, this part of the sustainability practice of manufacturing is still evolving and growing, and present unique opportunities for different types of polymer chemistry.
Recycled content remains one of the most popular, yet complex, forms of improving sustainability. Recycling uses a global infrastructure and a universal numbering system to manage product sorting and processing, and the result is a supply of different polymers that may be re-introduced into the plastics supply chain, if applications can be found that would accommodate the modifications of performance and safety of a plastic that is re-processed from a prior consumer or industrial use. These sorted feedstocks are referred to by number:
1: Polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE). This is the most frequently recycled polymer, and it can be found in peanut butter jars, plastic soda and water bottles, microwavable food trays, and salad dressing bottles.
2: High density polyethylene (HDPE). Common applications include liquid containers for consumption, cleaning supply and industrial liquid bottles, and some shopping bags. Another very common recyclable polymer.
3: Polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Used in piping, bottles, specialty application tubing, wire jacketing, and other applications.
4: Low density polyethylene (LDPE). Found in squeezable bottles (including food bottles), toys, and in many plastic films and bags.
5: Polypropylene (PP), often used in liquid containers, bottles and bottle caps, and drinking straws.
6: Polystyrene (PS). Often found in foam form (packing materials and disposable containers), or hardened forms (molded cases).
7: Miscellaneous and mixed applications of #1-6. These are not collected by municipalities as often as the other numbered plastics, and are more challenging to re-use as new feedstock, because the blends of different polymer chemistries make it challenging to maintain a consistent feedstock.
You may notice and be wondering: why no nylon?
Recycled Feedstock Uses and Nylon in Recycling
The process of naming a polymer as “recycled” or “recyclable” is complex - there needs to be a reclamation process (think of the recycling containers we all fill up at home and at work), municipal regulation or private infrastructure to support collection (think of the local recycling trucks, whether private or public), and a means of separating out the individual polymer chemistries within a product into ‘pure’ recycled feedstocks. This is why some plastics, even though they could be broken down or treated and reused, may not have existing recycling coverage where you live and work.
Currently, Nylon (polyamide) is not a common “recyclable” polymer - there is not a designated number for nylon collection as there is for PET or LDPE / HDPE, and as a result it can be challenging to get recycled nylon BACK to reuse in new nylon manufacturing. However, nylon manufacturers such as NYCOA, who polymerizes all our own Nylon with all our own chemistries, has the ability to do reintroduce pure nylon materials back into our production lines, at the right scale and with the right commercial partner (for example, grinding down a molded part into pellets to blend into new resin of the same chemistry is something NYCOA has some experience in executing). NYCOA is also developing multi-polymer blends that incorporate common recycled polymers into nylon blends, which provide unique performance characteristics and allow a nylon resin to include post-consumer and post-industrial content.
Another approach to recycled content in nylon is through raw ingredient feedstocks. This involves either the depolymerization of nylon back into its fundamental components or reclaiming unused raw materials that are reclaimed from waste, and reusing those monomers to make nylon. This could be either post-consumer or post-industrial recycling, depending on how the nylon was used prior to being depolymerized.
NYCOA Program: PCR and PIR Flexible Nylon
Summary: Based off of NYCOA’s unique Ny-Flex product family of flexible PEBA nylon chemistries, we are offering prototype grades of Ny-Flex GREEN, which are nylon grades compounded with post-consumer and post-industrial recycled content, at levels of 25% - 55%. These hybridized compounded products are hybrid compounds that show comparable tensile strength, energy return, flexural qualities, softness and thermal properties to Ny-Flex, but with a significant contribution (including some grades that are majority-constructed) by recycled content.
Potential applications: Fasteners; athletic equipment; industrial films; molded parts
Current Status (early 2021): available for sampling
NYCOA Program: PCR and PIR extrusion grade Nylon
Summary: Taking some of NYCOA’s proven NYCOADAPT product family copolymers, and compounding them with compatilized post-consumer and post-industrial recycled PE content, NYCOA can offer application-specific grades of nylon with high levels of post-consumer content.
Potential applications: Fasteners; injection molding; sheet extrusion products.
Current Status (early 2021): prototypes available for sampling
NYCOA Program: Post-Industrial Raw Materials
Summary: Using reclaimed post-industrial raw materials, NYCOA can polymerize new nylon resin with post-industrial content, applicable for virtually any of NYCOA’s products. Supplies currently limited due to existing demand.
Potential applications: any current Nylon applications or NYCOA products.
Current Status (early 2021): commercial in limited quantities
To find out more about our fastener grades of nylon, please contact us!
About NYCOA
NYCOA (the Nylon Corporation of America) commercially manufactures specialty engineered nylon, including nylon 6, nylon copolymers and terpolymers, nylon 6,10 and nylon 6,12, long-chain nylon chemistry alternatives to nylon 11 and nylon 12, as well as a broad variety of compounded nylon materials. All NYCOA products are made in the USA, manufactured in our ISO plant located in Manchester, NH. NYCOA is dedicated to plastics engineering, plastics innovation, and a consistent quality earned through operational excellence. NYCOA is dedicated to its customers, and produces specialty engineered polymers for industries and partners around the world, and has plastics compounding capabilities to produce a variety of reinforced grades.
NYCOA manufactures specialty engineered polyamide (nylon) plastics for many industries and applications, including fasteners, hook and loop, extruded parts, injection molding, foamed components, monofilament, powders, and wire and cable jacketing.
Contact:
333 Sundial Ave.
Manchester, NH 03103-7230
Tel: 603.627.5150
Fax: 603.627.4499