FAQ’S
We would like our plastic moulding to be as “green” as possible. Are there any “green” plastics?
You have two choices. Firstly, you can use a reprocessed grade of plastic. This is basically a material that has been recovered from plastic scrap of some kind – reject mouldings or reclaimed parts. This scrap is then reprocessed, sometimes with the addition of some virgin polymer, to produce a reprocessed grade with the required properties. A wide range of reprocessed polymers is available although colours are sometimes limited.
Secondly, there are an increasing number of Bioplastics being developed. These are produced from renewable sources that are generally plant based as opposed to oil. At the moment there is a limited choice of polymers for injection moulding but this is an area of future growth.
Is it true that injection moulding is only suited to high volume products?
It is certainly true that an injection mould tool is more expensive than moulds used in other plastic moulding processes. Therefore, for simple parts a relatively high volume of demand is required to justify the initial investment. However, there are a number of reasons for choosing injection moulding:
- Replacement of more expensive material, e.g. metal.
- Cheaper than a machined part in many cases.
- Better aesthetics than parts produced by some other moulding methods.
- Tighter tolerances possible than with other moulding methods.
- A number of parts may be combined into a single moulding so eliminating expensive assembly operations.
- Injection moulding of a finished part whereas some other moulding processes require expensive finishing operations.
Rutland Plastics offers free, no obligation quotes so it costs nothing to discover whether or not injection moulding is suited to your application.
For more information on materials and designing for injection moulding please contact us.
For more information on designing for injection moulding please contact us.