How do people manage microplastics when sanding?
vicfaith
| Updated 9 months ago
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How do people manage microplastics when sanding?

Don't have much access to high cost/huge setup systems, but sanding extruded plastic lumber/sanding finished final furniture products with orbital hand sanders sends microplastics everywhere. Is there an automated sanding process that can also collect or contain microplastics?

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Avatar of BenDobbs
bendobbs
9 months ago
Don't sand if you don't need to. Some workspaces use thickeners/planers plus sanding to get a good surface, but there's a LOT of plastic dust to be dealt with. My suggestions are: Do it in a room that's clean to begin with so you can sweep up the mess. Wet sand. This will help keep the plastic from floating around in the air going all over the place and making the floor slippery from micro (nano?) plastic. You'll need to make a system for reclaiming all the plastic dust from the water though. If you don't wet sand, you'll need a good air filtration system and/or vacuum system. I'm sure there's other ways to manage it. But those are my thoughts for now :-)Show more
Avatar of vicfaith
vicfaith
9 months ago
Thank you so much! the "nano" plastic is what worries me even with a vacuum system. has any one every tried out other ways of smoothing plastic to indoor furniture level smoothness? Maybe utilizing heat? like heated cutting or heated rolling?
Avatar of alexander skoluda
alexander-skoluda
8 months ago
Better avoid sanding at large scale. Instead use machining processes that produce chips big enough to be collected and recycled. Turning, milling, drilling, sawing, planing and scraping can produce satisfactory surfaces when applied at low speed.
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