Sustainable Sailing

Following our post Transforming waste with DIY Plastic recycling we have made some progress.

Our son is going to build-up the machines we need and get the processes for shredding and injection moulding sorted for us. That will include getting some products built for sale with Sustainable Sailing branding. The idea is to get everything sorted for us to take onto the boat when we retire as a fully functioning system.

So we have now bought a stainless steel shredder with a stainless steel hopper from Reading Shredding (a Precious Plastic version 3.1 design). We are buying a second-hand electric motor with gearbox on eBay (just waiting for the final invoice reflecting us collecting as it is pretty local). The jury is out as to whether on the boat we will end up with a dedicated electric motor for the shredder or power it by a belt drive to our main boat motor.

We think we have found the right injection moulding machine as a kit, also made in the UK by Recycle Rebuild. We will probably replace some of the bolts with more quick release options and will look for a way to attach it to the boat rather than use it’s stand. They also make lots of modular moulds which will give us lots of things to make for use and for sale (being able to make tiles for our galley and heads from our own waste plastic is super cool).

Our lovely friend Jules is helping us with a version of our logo that can be used with these modular moulds 🙂

We are also working on how to get a mould created for our rigging tangs. Likely that we will start by making a cylinder (maybe 60mm or 70mm diameter and 20mm long) and then working with hand tools to create our prototypes. Basically it needs a slightly angled and beautifully rounded groove in the top so that the dyneema eye splice doesn’t slide sideways or chafe. I’m wondering about making a separate “hat” that will stop the dyneema jumping out of the groove when you are installing the rigging or lifting the mast on or off the boat. If it is a full “hat” it will also protect the main tang and dyneema from UV damage as well.

It would be possible, to make inner and outer chafe protectors for the chainplates. We could rout out a section of the G10 plates between and around the holes for the dyneema lashings. Then a piece of hdpe could fill that with “tubes” to extend into the holes to make them very chafe resistant for the dyneema. As all the sizing and angles would be very custom it is probably something we would hand carve after making an hdpe “brick”. A good thing about working with recycled plastic is that you can collect all your shavings and off-cuts and put them back into the process. So no extra waste 🙂

We have got a few other boat specific products in mind such as cleat boots (slot over each end of a mooring cleat when it isn’t in use so that you don’t stub your toes on it). Also clip on parts for fairleads to reduce the chafe on mooring lines.

If you can think of other products that we could make out of recycled plastic and sell to other cruisers please let us know.