What kind of polyethylene material can be recycled?

Polyethylene (PE) or polyethylene is the most common plastic. The annual global production is around 80 million tons. Its primary use is in packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes, containers including bottles, etc.).


Expanded polyethylene (EPE) can often be made from polyethylene. EPE is a closed-cell, non-crosslinked polyethylene foam composed of LDPE (low-density polyethylene) resins. Due to its excellent thermal insulating qualities and water resistance, EPE foam finds extensive use in packaging. It is produced via an extrusion technique and is often offered in a variety of shapes and sizes, including sheets, rolls, pipes, rods, L, C, and U sections, each of which has a specific set of applications. The most common forms of utilization are rolls and sheets.

Most countries can understand the abbreviation form of Expanded polyethylene, but some countries such as the United States, this Polyethylene foam material will not be called EPE. In the US recycling industry, the abbreviated EPE cannot be understood usually.

It is possible to recycle standard non-crosslinked EPE material to make various plastic goods. There is now essentially no way to recycle cross-linked PE material. This material will only be used by a select few businesses to create the carpet. However, if your goal is only to accomplish volume reduction in order to enable transportation and save shipping costs, rather than fully recycle the cross-linked PE material, you can use a foam crusher to smash it into small pieces (20–50 mm) prior to transportation. With GREENMAX continuing to be improved, we think that engineers will soon discover a way to recycle cross-linked PE material.

EPE is a recyclable material, and many companies today can offer Polyethylene foam recycling solutions. The method of EPE recycling is relatively simple. In fact, hot melting is the easiest first step to recycle EPE. The recycled EPE can be used to granulate PE pellets.



The hot melt machine can be used to achieve melted EPE, and GREENMAX from INTCO, which has a decent reputation, currently offers the hot melt machine at a reasonable cost. A device that is capable of processing a variety of foam materials is the GRRENMAX Mars series densifier. The EPE material can be perfectly melted by it. Its technology of screw crushing can break the EPE material into fragments. Its hot melt technology can then be used to melt these EPE bits into ingots.


This melting approach has several advantages, such as reducing the volume, easy to transport, reduce transportation costs and so on. And the configuration and service of GREENMAX densifier is very good. When the densifier is shipped to the guests, there will be a dedicated engineer alongside to help text the operation. As long as the operation is proper, the hot melted EPE ingots will be of good quality.

If you also want to participate in the recycling of this recyclable EPE, GREENMAX densifier will be a very good choice.


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