During the 1990s, a number of technologies emerged to utilize recycled plastics in products designed to replace dimensional composite deck furniture. While the largest market growth has been in the production of exterior deck boards, recycled plastic lumber (RPL) is also being used to fabricate moldings, doorjambs, window casings, playground equipment, railway ties, pilings, posts and fencing products. Despite a temporary slowdown in demand in 2000-2001, due to generally depressed economic conditions and the accumulation of high inventories by suppliers, the plastic lumber industry remains a growing force in the construction and building sector. Some of the traditional composite decking boards companies are investing in new facilities to produce polyethylene wood composites.
In addition, a number of Canadian companies have launched plastic lumber products in the past two years (although, for the most part, these recent start-ups have focused on the use of virgin polymers, rather than recycled plastics). Recently, an Ontario firm has updated an earlier extrusion flow molding technology, which had only limited application, to create a low-cost, high-output system that should provide new options for using recycled plastic, including sources that are heavily contaminated, to make railway ties and other large cross-section timbers.
This section briefly reviews the major production systems that are being used to make recycled plastic lumber -- including single polymer systems, extrusion flow molding systems, fiberglass-reinforced RPL, composite deck boards pricing PVC extrusion profiles, woodfibre-plastic composites, oriented woodfibre-polymer composites, and polymer-polymer products.
This section also assesses the capacities of the various production technologies to utilize recycled plastics in an effective and economic manner, and investigates the opportunities that might arise through the use of the new extrusion flow mold system developed by SPS Inc. (Tilsonburg, Ontario).
没有评论:
发表评论