Plastic molding with grocery bags

I hated seeing all these perfectly good plastic bags go to waste, so I decided I would figure out a way to reuse them. In this instructable I'll show you how to use old bags to mold plastic parts.

Step 1 Gather materials

All you need is:

Pliers
Lighter
Plastic bags

A mold to cast


A large open space

Comments

[evindrews]

OK, so i'm making a mold out of paper clay, this is probably a dumb question, but will it set it on fire? What if I used some sort of spray paint to cover the clay? thanks.
^.^

[SirStokes]

Those pieces look awesome! I like whenever people find ways to recycle stuff at home. Not everyone has city-wide recycling (I am one of the lucky ones), so DIY recycling is actually very important.

[lukev2]

could i make a mold of a wooden hand with this method? i need to reproduce it.......

[Capt.Cassandra]

Did you use any mold release for your molds? Or was it pretty easy to slip the finished product out?

[JAYDAWG40]

ha thats funny when i saw the matirals list and saw plastic bags the first thing i thought was i can get all the bags i need from work. scrolled down and saw the ace hardware bag. just thought it was funny because i work at an ace hardware lol

[freerunnin1]

would it be possible to make a buckle piece from this that will be strong enough? i mean one of the pieces that look like [][]

[chingchong]

It would be green if u use an oven if your on an green powerplant grid. like solar power or nuclear power.

[servant74]

Wind, PV, and other solar are the only 'real green'. Nukes just change the problem and push working out a solution for it back a few years. Sofar the good folks on NV still don't want the nuke waste site in their state where the feds have built a nice 'disposal site' in a mountain. Anyone else want it?

[trevor3693]

i live in NV and even though we dont want the waste we still get it. our main concern is the route the trucks take. it is like they are trying to go next to every school.

[Nunavutnewsrules]

Just throwing it out there, but our local nuclear powerplant has stored all of its nuclear waste on site. So far i dont see anything wrong with the enviorment in this area.

[caleiton]

And what do you think will happen with all that nuclear waste in 50, 100 or 200 years, that is not going to return to nature ever, it is not part of any nature cycle

[mcshawnboy]

Not that I have the answer, but I recall reading science trying to warn folks in the future of dangers of sites like the proposed Yucca Mountain of the long time hazards w/o using materials that may have value. There was the logic of how cultures after the Egyptian pharaohs rule ended others striped the pyramids of exterior veneers of limestone. They considered scary images in sculpture of pot metals or stone, but no final answer met the challenger into the half-life of many centuries if our language & culture perish.

[EEGeek]

corrected for some of the fat-finger typos!:
A.)  I think it's a good instructable, which happens to have nothing to do with nuclear power

b.) So, you don't actually know anything about nuclear power, just shooting off stuff out of ignorance or fear right?   The nuclear plants of today, as an example:  the amount of nuclear "waste" generated while powering about 10,000-20,000 homes for 5-7 years generates about a softball sized expended fuel puck.  about 85% of which can be re-enriched and used again.  How much waste, exactly do you think is generated making enough solar panels to power 10-20,000 homes FULLY for 5-7 years?  Let along the ones that end up broken or fully in the landfill when the house come down?

Kind of like why your new Prius is SO less green than my gas guzzling dodge ram with 300K miles on it that is 20 years old.  The cost to make the Prius (and the next one that will replace it to get to 300k+ miles) to the environment, is so much more than the cost of actually using it.

[fduerr]

I've done some calculating and the cost to make and deliver a Prius is much higher in terms of energy consumption than the energy cost of running the old gas guzzler during its entire life time.

[chickenlinux]

Amen!

Furthermore, has anyone seen the prototype thorium-fueled reactors? They're amazing! You can run an average US home for 10 hears off of all the thorium in one cubic meter of soil. O.O

They partially create their own fuel (and generate electricity from doing so...)

It creates only 10% of the harmful waste that current reactors do (which isn't much anyhow...) and 90% of that 10% becomes stable and harmless after 10 years. That leaves 1% of the harmful waste after 10 years of today's nuclear reactors. This mere 1% can be postprocessed into useful materials, eg, electronics, medical equipment, etc.

And all these environmentalists just hate nuclear power... -.-

[mvermunt]

Also, by design, they immediately shut-down if anything goes amiss. there is NO reason not to use thorium fueled reactors.

Glad someone brought it up

[GrumpyOldGoat]

I wuz in favor of burying the 'spent fuel' at algoes house.

[nave]

give give it to canada, they need some excitment in their lives...

[dabooge]

Nave, that is a typical naive American response. As with most Americans who really don't know jack about the rest of the world! Just add the "I" to your nick!

[stoobers]

<sarcasm>
At least we know how to spell "navy".  It doesn't have an I in it!
</sarcasm>

[nave]

dude, calm the hell down it was a joke, see americans still have a sense of humor

[grut125]

if you didnt arlready know they are one of the most polluted places in the world. but id dont care i sstill love the country.

[nave]

i didn't say that the country was under populated, i said they need something to do other than hockey

[mazeka.14]

Hey!

[thermoelectric]

Lol, Keep it out of Australia or else......

[john4tvs]

Green is the visible light spectrum from about 560 to 490 nm wavelenght or 540 to 610 THz. It's color.

[YummyPancakes]

Yes, but it's the color of plants, which represent the Environment, therefore "green" power sources would be Environment-friendly. Heck, if you actually memorized the visible spectrum in THz, you should be smart enough to figure that out.

[GrumpyOldGoat]

No, it is the color of MONEY!
And that is the only shade of green algore and friends are interested in.

[chad oliver]

He was being sarcastic while mocking the off-topic discussion, not saying that green couldn't also represent the environment. Have a nice day!

[shakra]

the fact that natural resources are mined out of the earth to produce the nuclear energy is the part that is not green. Killing national parks, chopping down trees and mining are not green.

[mazeka.14]

nuclear energy is green!!

[thermoelectric]

No it ain't, You won't be thinking that when one of the reactors mysteriously go KA-BOOM and kill thousands of people

[Ceiling cat]

Here's a question. How many nuclear power plants are there in the world? About 400, and plans to build more. How many times has one had an accident? Seven or less in fifty years. How many times have you turned on the news to see a nuclear power plant disaster? Probably never. They can have accidents, but it happens very rarely.

[kasengut]

Now, look at Japan.... Reactors exploding one after another due to nobody's fault.
And one person talking about an accident in a plant at Kent, which never got reported....

[xc1024]

Japan disasters were due to the tsunami and cost-cutting. The last one resulted in poorer quality materials, poorer maintenance and made the job of the tsunami easier.
If people were smart enough to see that you CANNOT cut corners, AT ALL, while constructing and maintaining nuclear power plants, these accidents would have much less effect. Even if an accident would happen, properly implemented safety measures would reduce any risk to a manageable level.

[thermoelectric]

Haven't you heard of the Chernobly Disaster?

That is an nuclear power plant accident, and that CAN happen. Who is to say it won't happen again?

[iamsparkalicious]

I stink you need more research from independent sources, not the onion. just sayin...

[Ceiling cat]

Actually I have heard of the Chernobyl Disaster, very much so. But that was one event of only seven. And it was the direct result of people making very bad decisions, not of a lack of the reactors safety. These accidents are possible, just not very probable.

[thermoelectric]

You even said it! These accidents are possible, just not very probable.

Even if they aren't probable, They can still happen

[unseen wombat]

well i hope you don't ever go out in a car, because even though it isn't probable, traffic fatalities HAPPEN. Or fly in a plane, or go swimming, or use the shower, or walk downstairs, or cross the street, or...