The Machines We Use in the BRAD Micro Recycling Workshop

When I first started BRAD in my backyard, I never anticipated that it would grow to the size it is today. As one of Australia’s largest specialty recyclers, we process materials in-house and collaborate with Australian micro-recyclers to recycle what we refer to as the 'ugly ducklings' of the recycling industry. Items that others deem too hard and too difficult to recycle. 

As our operations have grown over the last 4+ years, so has our processing capacity. We have grown and scaled slowly as the whole operation is labour-intensive. After much request, here is a list of the machinery we currently use, along with an in-depth explanation. 

Full equipment list is here but it's more fun if you read the story behind each of them below. 

Note: this post includes affiliate links that give us a small percentage per sale, which helps us keep the lights on and keep sharing knowledge like this. 

Mini bench-top extruder

I think this would have to be our most-used and asked about machine. This mighty little Zephyr Bros. Extruder Machine helps us produce pens, carabiners, mini pot plants, Christmas decorations and so much more! You place the shredded bottle top lids in the top hopper and wind the handle, which pushes the plastic through the tunnel and heats at the same time, so it can come out the other end (this is where the mould goes!). 

Mini Shredder

Ange is our demonstration model. When we first started, she did all of our shredding, but the capacity is limited. It shreds approximately 40 bottle top lids an hour and is best at shredding the super small lids over the larger. You can see our guide on how we sort the lids by the type of plastic and the colour here. 

Moulds

We work with a combination of moulds picked off the shelf from Precious Plastic Melbourne or designed in-house. The benefit of buying an “off the shelf” mould is you know it is going to work the first time you use it. Precious Plastic Melbourne pricing includes branding too, remember to use the code BANISH to get a free O.G Carabiner mould. 

Large Shredder

After many, many many months of searching, I found a secondhand shredder on Marketplace. It was previously used to shred ocean plastics so it required a lot of tender, loving care but now it is perfect for us and shreds around 8 kilos an hour. We now sell our shredded materials, which is what I had access to when I first started! It means you don’t need to set up collection points, sort the plastics and shred them down yourselves. 

Sheet Press

Whilst the moulds are great, they are limiting because every time you want to make a new product, you need to buy a new mould. This is hard because you might not be sure if a product is going to be right for your community, and if you only want to make a couple of that item it is costly. We invested in a single-sided T-shirt printing Machine that helps us create sheets of plastic, aka a blank canvas. Simply place the three-piece frame on the base and cook it on each side to make a beautiful and unique sheet. 

The most efficient sheet press would have a heating element on both sides, although we haven’t found a good machine for that yet. We purchased this one as the double plain means once it has cooked on one side, we can slide is along, flip it and slide it back, which reduces the likelihood of us accidentally injuring yourself. It also means that on the other side, we can prep a sheet to make it even faster. 

Again, speaking of things I wish I had when I was starting out we now have HDPE (#2) and LDPE (#4) plastic sheets available for purchase so you can trial your ideal before investing. 

CNC Machine

The CNC machine allows us to cut custom shapes from the 40 x 40 sheets that we make. For example, our earrings, laptop and phone stands. The Fox Machine has a total bed or cut size of 40cm x 40cm, which is the same size as our sheets. With the volume of cutting we need to do we upgraded our router, which made the cuts cleaner, more accurate and faster. For engraving and curved edges, you need different cutting bits; we purchase ours from an Australian business, Adams Bits. Here is a link to our CNC machine.

Arbour Press

Our newest machine is an Arbour Press which allows us to now injection mould products. We looked at getting a larger extruder, but this machine from Sustainable Design Studio has a shot size of 110g, which means we can make larger products with less effort. This allows us to make coasters and a whole range of new products which are launching very soon.

If you’re just getting started and would like some help, why not book in for a one-on-one call? You can organise a chat with our in-house product designer, Tony, to chat through plastic applications, machines and moulds or our founder, Lottie, to discover more of the business side of our operations. Please email info@banish.com.au to enquire about pricing and availability.