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Made in gb
Crafty Bray Shaman




Anor Londo

Stupid question maybe, but can GW sprues be recycled?

It feels like a waste just throwing the empty frames into the bin.
   
Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

IIRC yes?

I remember a thread a while ago saying they could be, so I’ve been putting mine out with the recycling since then. Not sure if it’s true or not, but if not they can toss them at the recycling place. But I’m giving them a chance.

Of course the other, definite answer is “Yes - They can be recycled into terrain projects"

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

The problem is plastics require certain kinds of recycling setups that not every local council will have access too. So some people might say they can be and other say they can't because their local has access to different facilities. Best thing is to call your local refuse collection group and ask them if it can be recycled or not. If they can't then they might know where you can send it on.


A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Stupid question maybe, but can GW sprues be recycled?

It feels like a waste just throwing the empty frames into the bin.


You want to know what to do with them? Grind them up, put them in a bag, and send a message out to Mini makers and see if they will hook you up with casting you some figures....

Otherwise, just grind them up and put them in a bag. Don't throw them away.

And yes- It's plastic, you can recast it.

I make terrain out of them, myself.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






It seems that in general, polystyrene isn't recyclable:

http://www.sustainabilityguide.co.uk/2018/02/05/recyclable-plastic/

My local council certainly tells me not to put it into the recycling bin, but into general waste instead. This site might help you find a recycling centre that will take polystyrene, but it's referring to expanded polystrene - the kind of stuff kebabs come in, rather than the "solid" stuff that model kits are made of:

https://www.recyclenow.com/

   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

I used to think it could be recycled.

However in most regions of the UK PS plastic Isn't recyclable through kerbside schemes.

Polystyrenes include EPS foam takeaway trays and plastic cutlery and CD cases with mini sprues somewhere on that scale.

Also PVC is non recyclable so no chucking any of those components in the recycling either.

   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






I just had to look because I tend to put them in the "Yellow bag" in our recycling system in Germany. At least they specifically state on their website that it belongs there and that they separate it from the other plastic types, grind it down and recycle it. So it seems to be possible.

~6550 build and painted
819 build and painted
830 
   
Made in au
[MOD]
Making Stuff






Under the couch

It's possible, it just depends on whether you local area has the facilities to do it.

There are gadgets available that let you grind it up and turn it into 3d filament for printing, which would be handy if you have a filament printer that can use HIPS.

 
   
Made in au
Anti-Armour Swiss Guard






Newcastle, OZ

Can it be recycled?

On a local level , it depends on the local government regs/restrictions in your area and the infrastructure.
If you have a "recycling" service in your area, check that the number in the triangle can be added to the bin (HIgh Impact polystyrene, HIPS or "plasticard" are #6).

For the can it physically be recycled?
It can be ground up and used as "filler" in further batches of injection moulded stuff (they normally use beads of a more clear polystyrene that gets dyes/pigments added to it for the process) - but it's generally only about a 10% addition (because reheating melted styrene and reusing it weakens the plastic).


I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.

That is not dead which can eternal lie ...

... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User






Yeh...
[Thumb - 20201103_230740.jpg]

[Thumb - 20190627_141637.jpg]

[Thumb - 20190625_080025.jpg]

[Thumb - 20190627_141736.jpg]


JD 
   
Made in gb
Crafty Bray Shaman




Anor Londo



Nice skills


Thanks for the info everyone. Can’t help but think that GW should make it easier for us to recycle the sprues, maybe offer a drop off point at their shops. If they can re-use the plastic it would be a win-win situation for them.
   
Made in gb
Rampaging Reaver Titan Princeps





Warwickscire

Someone went further

   
Made in us
Courageous Questing Knight





Texas

Wargames Factory used to have a sprue collection/recycling program... It was called the 'Old Soldier Recycling Program' and they would melt down the sprues and re-use the plastic, but not sure how economic it was. This is going back about 10+ years and I thought was fairly popular, that is until the company got taken over by different leadership. They would give you some sort of credit, I think.

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
Made in gb
Using Object Source Lighting







I thought they were recyclable plastics. A bit worried with the pollution footprint of millions of sprues.
So if you want the safer for the environment mini material then probably metal is your best bet.


   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

 NAVARRO wrote:
I thought they were recyclable plastics. A bit worried with the pollution footprint of millions of sprues.
So if you want the safer for the environment mini material then probably metal is your best bet.



It would be really interesting to see what percentage by volume of a NoS mini is just garbage sprue.

I guess if anyone really wants change they could start by posting sprues back to GW for them to dispose of?
Same goes for scale model companies such as Revel. et al.

   
Made in us
Stealthy Grot Snipa





Atlanta, GA

 NAVARRO wrote:
I thought they were recyclable plastics. A bit worried with the pollution footprint of millions of sprues.
So if you want the safer for the environment mini material then probably metal is your best bet.



Be more worried about the millions of pounds of waste plastic from the fishing industry. For what it's worth, something like 70% of all plastics pollution comes from giant corporations; Coca-cola was the world's number one polluter of plastics for the second year in a row recently.

I do think it's laudable as consumers to do our part, but it's even more important to hold corporations accountable. While I'm sure GW produces a lot of plastic, it's probably a drop in the bucket compared to many bigger companies.
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

Related musing... could companies make sprues more useful?

Starting with easy thoughts, square sprue could be cut up and used for all sort of terrain and projects and would be more useful than round or trapezoid shaped.

More ambitiously could sprue be shaped to look like rocks or wreckage and be immediately useful rather than just trash?


 
   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






I recently got a bits bag from Anvil were this was done at some sprues. They looked like old woodplanks (the way you would see in a trench) or damaged concrete blocks. I don't know if they target on doing that more often, but I appreciated the idea.

~6550 build and painted
819 build and painted
830 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I recently got a bits bag from Anvil were this was done at some sprues. They looked like old woodplanks (the way you would see in a trench) or damaged concrete blocks. I don't know if they target on doing that more often, but I appreciated the idea.


Pig Iron did something similar with their metal sprues, but I wonder if there's something about plastic molding that would make it harder since I've never seen it in plastic.

 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

It may just be harder to get the plastic to flow evenly around the sprue and then release from the mold afterwards if you do all that fancy stuff.
Not to mention the sprues are quite small and you'd struggle to do something really that useful with them.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Related musing... could companies make sprues more useful?

Starting with easy thoughts, square sprue could be cut up and used for all sort of terrain and projects and would be more useful than round or trapezoid shaped.

More ambitiously could sprue be shaped to look like rocks or wreckage and be immediately useful rather than just trash?



They totally could, but depending on what you wanted, milling that detail would be a pretty significant addition of time. Then who knows how picky the consumers will be. It is reasonable to expect a replacement for a miscast part, but are they going to replace a section of miscast sprue?

DA70+S++G++M(GD)B+++I++++Pw40k96-D+++A++/mWD218R+++T(M)DM++ 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Yeah, it depends on how your municipal handles polystyrene, ours stopped a few years back. Though I preferred to scrap build stuff like terrain, chassis for scratch vehicles, and to make the base bodies for green stuffing characters. I still have boxes of the stuff in my hobby closet.
You could always check in with local maker spaces, or see if anyone is doing Precious Plastic upcycling projects in your area?

 Robert Facepalmer wrote:
 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Related musing... could companies make sprues more useful?

Starting with easy thoughts, square sprue could be cut up and used for all sort of terrain and projects and would be more useful than round or trapezoid shaped.

More ambitiously could sprue be shaped to look like rocks or wreckage and be immediately useful rather than just trash?



They totally could, but depending on what you wanted, milling that detail would be a pretty significant addition of time. Then who knows how picky the consumers will be. It is reasonable to expect a replacement for a miscast part, but are they going to replace a section of miscast sprue?


^pretty much this.The purpose for sprue is to channel liquid plastic into the desired tool cavity shapes, manage plastic overflow from tight corners, then allow for non-destructive ejection of the actual parts, and in model industry acts as packaging/presentation of parts as well. If it was economical/practical companies would just clip the parts out and throw the sprue back in the hoppers for future injections.

Fully rectangular shapes adds time to the machine process, uses more plastic than necessary, and would require more push to eject from the machine. If you look close at hardsurface parts for tanks/terrain, 'boxy' parts are rarely 90 degrees, there's a slight angle to each side so it slides out of the mold. Making any fancy shapes for sprue would require additional engineering, and can complicate how the plastic flows into the desired parts areas, where/how cooling is piped through to prevent shrinking and deformation of the parts, and adds extras headaches on how to eject the parts. It can be done, but it's really not worth it. That's time and money for a niche industry with tight budgets.

I remember seeing some resin casting company did a broken wall brick thing for some of their smaller parts sprues which was neat, but that's a different animal from injection molding.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/02 20:53:47


   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

Thanks Ponda, I figured there were technical reasons and your explanation certainly helps.

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Related musing... could companies make sprues more useful?

Starting with easy thoughts, square sprue could be cut up and used for all sort of terrain and projects and would be more useful than round or trapezoid shaped.

More ambitiously could sprue be shaped to look like rocks or wreckage and be immediately useful rather than just trash?



I saw an article on terrain-making once where the author used an old hand-cranked mincer to chop up sprue into chunks for rubble. I've always been tempted to see if I could find one somewhere.
   
Made in au
Anti-Armour Swiss Guard






Newcastle, OZ

You need one of the old metal cast grinders with the METAL auger screw. With the big screw foot to attach them to the bench.

The problem is, they tend to be cast aluminium and have succumbed to corrosion by now.



I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.

That is not dead which can eternal lie ...

... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I've seen sprue cut into lengths with clippers, roughed up with a coffee grinder, and used as bricks. That works very well and you don't even really need to clean off all the burs and stuff since it all disappears in the rough coffee ground edges anyway.

Or melting sprues with acetone works well too to roll out into sheet panels or whatever.
   
Made in us
Lieutenant General





Florence, KY

Warhammer Community had this question on their Hobby Clinic on Twitch this week. Along with the bricks, they said that sprues make good ruined girders for Adeptus Titanicus, they can be used to make small 'castle' markers for a map campaign and cut them at a bit of an angle and paint them gold for gold ingots.

'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents
cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable
defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'

- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty
Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





You can drop little bits of sprue into a bottle of plastic cement and it will melt and you have yourself some sprue glue. Can be used to fill bigger gaps (bit too messy for small gaps I found) or simply paint it on terrain for texture. Note if you put too much sprue in then the whole concoction just solidifies
   
Made in au
Anti-Armour Swiss Guard






Newcastle, OZ

If you grind them up relatively finely (more than the coarseness produced by a meatgrinder) - I'm talking more "powdery" than chunky, it's easier to mix into a filler paste.

I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.

That is not dead which can eternal lie ...

... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
 
   
Made in au
Speed Drybrushing





Newcastle NSW

Before people start melting plastic sprues be aware that it releases cyanide gas when broken down.

Not a GW apologist  
   
 
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