The opportunity to generate additional revenues while eliminating costly waste removal has caught the attention of many home furnishings manufacturers, foam fabricators, carpet installers and other converts of flexible polyurethane foam. An easy product to recycle, flexible polyurethane foam scrap is now generating revenue for many end-users. The flexible polyurethane foam industry has made great strides in technology and end-use applications to address waste problems. By providing a “snapshot” of the opportunities for recycling in 1994, this bulletin is intended to assist manufacturers, production engineers, distributors, retailers, carpet installers, and others in the position to recover flexible polyurethane scrap. The following information examines the economic and environmental value of recovering and reusing scrap foam, with information on how your scrap can be used to generate revenue, offset raw material cost, and alleviate solid waste deposal problems. Reduce, reuse, recycle. This is hardly a new concept, but not always an easy one to realize. Many materials are difficult to recycle. Some simply don’t produce a valuable recycled material. Others are difficult to collect and transport. But, one material being recycled now, throughout the country, provides both environmental and financial benefits: flexible polyurethane foam.
Converting Polyurethane Foam Scrap Into Revenue
How can you turn your scrap into revenue? The process of recycling scrap foam into compacted logs is fairly simple. A polyurethane foam compactor offered by Siedon can achieve this. This foam compactor can compact PU foam blocks by ratio of 16:1 to 20:1 for easier transportation. The PUR compactors is featured with CFC ventilation system and water cooling system.
A Promising Future
The flexible polyurethane foam industry is a leader in recycling. It has made a significant contribution to Landfill Use Avoidance. More and more end-product manufacturers are able to utilize the recycling process because of its convenience and economic benefits. With more applications being developed and recovery of post-consumer waste making progress, the future impact of recycling polyurethane foam is promising.