# Waste Management



## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

So I've been looking at how to videos for home made foundries and forges.
Then I see a post on composting.

It mixed together in my brain and resulted in a big question that I rarely see mentioned and never see addressed.

What do you do with all of your garbage?

Food is easy. Eat it. But if it goes bad, compost it. Also peels and husks etc. can be composted.

Lots of people buying canned food. What do you do with the cans? What about foil and plastic wrappers? That junk piles up. Some of it, like mylar bags, jars, and buckets are reusable. That's awesome. But the rest?

I figured a pretty cool idea would be using a foundry to melt down old cans and scrap metal into bars for storage. Save time and water by not needing to really wash them, and the metal can be traded, and used to forge or mold new stuff.

But I cant figure out plastic. It burns nasty, smells disgusting, doesn't compost, and most of it isn't really recyclable in a sense that we could DIY make plastic stuffs.

My obvious idea is to just not buy plastics, or to buy what I need, but get rid of the plastics now while the garbage man still comes, and re package ASAP. 

But then there is the food saver, and it's bags.

So ok, cut bags on the big side, and only cut off the seal when opening so I can get multiple uses. But I don't know how well that will work.

Ok, enough of my ideas, what are y'all's solutions?


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## James m (Mar 11, 2014)

I would use the metal cans for plants. I see melting them a real waste of fuel. I don't compost yet, never tried it. The big question is what to do with poop, with the other posts on infection and things.


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

We have a burn barrel and you would be amazed at what burns down to nothing. Cans burn very easily and efficiently as does most garbage. Plastics are excellent fuel and can be re-used for multiple things. We also have a number of 6'x4' perc holes pre-dug on our land that we can bury stuff if needed. The perc holes were dug on multiple sites to determine a future pond site.


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

James m said:


> I would use the metal cans for plants. I see melting them a real waste of fuel. I don't compost yet, never tried it. The big question is what to do with poop, with the other posts on infection and things.


As I understand it, excrement can be composted, or leeched for improved fertility.

Then there is the military style, mixing it with diesel and burning it.

I figure if I'm using a small foundry like this DIY shows, I can melt cans easily into blocks or pour them directly into molds to create lots of useful items with just charcoal for fuel (which will be readily available to me)


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

Slippy said:


> We have a burn barrel and you would be amazed at what burns down to nothing. Cans burn very easily and efficiently as does most garbage. Plastics are excellent fuel and can be re-used for multiple things. We also have a number of 6'x4' perc holes pre-dug on our land that we can bury stuff if needed. The perc holes were dug on multiple sites to determine a future pond site.


When I mention plastics, I mean wrappers. Like MRE trash, or power bar wrappers, stuff like that.

Yes they burn great, and can be useful in starting larger fires as the melted plastic tends to drip down fire and stick to lower fuels.
But the fumes are toxic, the smoke is black, and the smell is unplesant, unnatural, and sticks to everything.

Then again, depending on the situations, these can also be useful aspects.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

I would like to try an experiment with plastic shopping bags someday...

On the internet, there are ladies that take several disposable shopping bags ( HDPE and/or LDPE) and fusing them together into a thicker plastic with just an iron set to medium heat( for rayon).Then the thicker plastic is used in various crafts including re-usable shopping bags.

It is the combination of heat and modest pressure that changes the plastic.

Anyways, if you go looking around your house, you will find HDPE in pill bottles, patio furniture.....a lot of our packaging.

I haven't tried this, but I'd like to create a heated extrusion gun that extrudes HDPE. If it works, initially I'd like to extrude it into paving bricks for the back yard, but if it extrudes really well, I'd like to sculpt with it.....get what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that a gun like that in my hands could be a very crude 3D printer. I could make planters, end tables, or by over-designing your creation, I bet you could make axe handles and such.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

Another not so common plastic is PP. examples of it are the original tupperware bowls. You will find it in similar applications as HDPE because they both can be food grade. The advantage to PP is its resistance to solvent. You can not solvent bond 2 pieces of PP together like you can with ABS or PVC. Interestingly, you can heat weld PP with a large soldering iron or hot air gun.

PVC is great prepper material. If you have a PVC pipe, you can make a knife sheath or axe sheath by heating it until it turns limp. you shape it to the way you want it, then as it cools it will become hard again. try googling a youtube project on this one. The interesting project I've seen is a PVC bow.

ABS is one of the most common plastics you will find in electronics and automotive. I don't believe that it will survive heat, however, just like PVC, it can be solvent bonded,and it is everywhere. Some ABS plastics obviously do handle reheating well because many 3D printers use ABS.

Edit: you can take shavings of ABS and disolve them into a paste with acetone or MEK. You can use a reuseable ketchup bottle (PP) to apply the paste to the joints of any ABS pipe project(furniture?cargo rack?) that you happen to be building and the end result will be stronger and better looking than ABS cement( ABS cement is MEK with fillers)


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## CourtSwagger (Jan 3, 2013)

Dig a hole and bury anything that can't be useful down the road? Basically what we do now with landfills now.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

burn, compost, re-use, throw away on a windy day.....


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## Medic33 (Mar 29, 2015)

burning barrel and an out house


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

Seems like good skills to have. Finding better uses for plastic bags and other "useless" junk would be awesome to improve quality of life now, much less post SHTF


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

Hmmm solid tarps out of plastic bags... or tents...


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

I've seen throw rugs crocheted out of plastic bags. Not a bad idea, actually. If you loosely knit or crocheted a blanket out of plastic bags, it could provide a lot of dead air space between other light weight coverings and might provide a lot of warmth. Just don't put it next to your skin or you'd sweat like crazy.


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

RNprepper said:


> I've seen throw rugs crocheted out of plastic bags. Not a bad idea, actually. If you loosely knit or crocheted a blanket out of plastic bags, it could provide a lot of dead air space between other light weight coverings and might provide a lot of warmth. Just don't put it next to your skin or you'd sweat like crazy.


Shredded and rolled into "yarn"?


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## Illini Warrior (Jan 24, 2015)

don't know about keeping tin cans and all that other poly junk - hinges on the brink of hoarding .... but the poly retail shopping bags are soon to be a distant memory .... CA and few other locales have already banned them ..... and they have a million uses for SHTF time - some already mentioned - mostly just damn useful as a bag .... I make "pillows" from stuffing the loose bags into larger garbage bags .... I stuff the pillows into the spaces around my heating ducts in the crawlspace .... helps with insulating - out of sight & mind - will last forever down there ....


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Jakthesoldier said:


> Shredded and rolled into "yarn"?


Nope, just twisted on itself.


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## Roaddawg (Mar 28, 2015)

I saw the topic and I thought it was about the trash hauler owned by the Mob.... Dang, I'm sorta feeling let down!


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## Gunner's Mate (Aug 13, 2013)

I saw the Post Waste Management and the firstthing I thought was Obama and Hillary


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

Illini Warrior said:


> don't know about keeping tin cans and all that other poly junk - hinges on the brink of hoarding .... but the poly retail shopping bags are soon to be a distant memory .... CA and few other locales have already banned them ..... and they have a million uses for SHTF time - some already mentioned - mostly just damn useful as a bag .... I make "pillows" from stuffing the loose bags into larger garbage bags .... I stuff the pillows into the spaces around my heating ducts in the crawlspace .... helps with insulating - out of sight & mind - will last forever down there ....


I'm not talking about hoarding tin cans, but I am talking about melting down my cans into ingots for compact storage and later use.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

If it is an aluminum can with a deposit, it is better to go after the deposit.

But, what to do with soup cans?


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## Rickity Plumber (Apr 10, 2015)

Do not use a torch to heat up PVC pipe. I have done it but it starts burning very easily and this by-product is extremely toxic. It will kill you. Better to use a heat gun. Previous posters were correct in stating PVC can be molded to just about any shape, even flattening itself to create a double thickness for various uses. 

Do not use the lighter weight PVC which we call 'foam-core'. It has a Styrofoam substance between the two walls to reduce weight.


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

tinkerhell said:


> If it is an aluminum can with a deposit, it is better to go after the deposit.
> 
> But, what to do with soup cans?


I see no reason these can't be melted down into ingots and used to create things still. Arrow heads and other light weight materials come to mind.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

I have heard that recycling metal requires 85% less energy that making it from its base minerals


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## James m (Mar 11, 2014)

I heard something similar. I heard about one soda can equals a few hours of TV. If you think of the energy expended first you have the mining of the ore, then creating the metal from the mined material.


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

tinkerhell said:


> I have heard that recycling metal requires 85% less energy that making it from its base minerals


And this seems like a way better idea to me


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

I wonder if this could be converted into a potato gun


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## Jakthesoldier (Feb 1, 2015)

Lol I absolutely love this guy's channel. Anyone who can make an arc welder, spot welder, and an arc furnace Out of two microwaves is ok in my book.


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