How A Modified “Cotton Candy” Machine Makes Plastic Fibers For Insulation | World Wide Waste

This looks like cotton candy, but it's actually plastic trash spun into soft, ultra-thin fibers. The four people who invented the process were inspired by the childhood treat. We wanted a project that can create a new business model in countries where plastic is abandoned. Now their company, the Poly Floss Factory, is deploying these portable units around the world So just imagine a big cloth jacket for houses. These covers can help keep basic shelters warm, even in refugee camps. Can a polyfloss machine make recycling easier in parts of the world that are drowning in trash? We went to Paris to see how a company that started as a school project is insulating homes with worldwide waste. It all started in 2011, when four design students in London set out to invent a cheap and simple way to turn plastic into something useful. But it would take them 11 years and eight prototypes to fine-tune their technology. The first prototype produced a dense foam. One of the properties that we weren't able to fully achieve was sponginess or squishiness. The next three devices gave off fumes and were unsafe to use indoors. Still, the grad students made all kinds of products, like lampshades, bowls and headphones. But then the team nearly called it quits. They disagreed about whether to accept an investment that would have forced them to industrialize the technology. They decided to reject the money and stay small. We made the choice to bet on the team to preserve our friendship and our trust. We envisioned smaller machines that could be distributed globally to the source of the waste, rather than moving the waste to factories. In 2014, they came up with a version that made the thinnest fiber yet. We had it woven, we had it knitted. It was very flexible, very versatile. Then a British architecture school asked them if the wool-like material could be used as insulation. And it worked. Even if it's a shelter, insulation is key and almost non-existent in some parts of the world. Finally, in 2020, they released the latest iteration, nicknamed Ellie. Christophe fabricates each component of the machine in-house. Ellie costs about $17,000, weighs 220 pounds when fully assembled, and is the safest, most efficient design yet. But you can't just throw a used bottle in there. The plastic needs to be cleaned and shredded. So they usually buy pellets from companies like Lemon Tree, a local recycler in Paris that accepts over 30 kinds of waste. It handles about 200 metric tons of plastic per year. At Polyfloss, pellets go into the hopper. Shredded plastic works too. The machine can process two of the most common types of plastic, PET and polypropylene. In less than a minute, the melted plastic is extruded through the head. This head is rotating really fast through this motor. And then the plastic, which is melted, creates fibers by centrifugation. They're blown by this blower. The moment you switch on the machine and fibers appear, it's really magical. Watching the floss pile up can be mesmerizing, but it's also dangerous. It's a machine that melts plastic, so it shouldn't be touched without any gloves. And also, of course, some smells, so we need to have gas masks and eye protections. They keep the machine in a secure room to contain the microplastic. It takes about 33 pounds of the fiber to fill a 22-square-foot cover. This can catch fire. That's why Polyfloss needs to be encapsulating in a fireproof fabric. The fabric also needs to be breathable, but still resist water, moisture, bacteria and rodents. Other types of insulation can be made with recycled materials, like glass and metal waste. But Polyfloss says its product is safer to handle than other popular options. Fiberglass, mineral wool and spray foam can irritate the skin, eyes and lungs, so you need protective equipment to install them. You actually can touch Polyfloss and you don't get all the issues you have with rockwool or glasswool. Polyfloss partners with NGOs to ship its machine across the world and make insulation using locally sourced plastic waste. We followed members of the Polyfloss team to a migrant community outside of Paris as they installed insulation in seven homes. About 30 people live here, all from the Ivory Coast. Many built their own homes with cheap materials. The aluminum covers reflect sunlight, so the panels can also keep the shelters cool in the summer. In 2020, Polyfloss partnered with two NGOs to insulate shelters at a camp in northwestern Syria for people fleeing ongoing violence. They set up production in Gaziantep, a four-hour drive from the camp on the other side of the Turkish border. Most of the waste they use comes from shredded yogurt containers bought from local recyclers. We had to work with really patchy houses and make sure they are safe and warm. Field tests showed the insulation kept the shelters up to 14 degrees warmer in the winter. So far, the project has insulated 22 Syrian homes. Polyfloss also deploys its machines to countries that have little to no recycling infrastructure, like Nepal. Cities around here collectively produce about 350 metric tons of plastic a day. A lot of that ends up in landfills. For the Polyfloss team, making insulation is just the beginning. We know Polyfloss is really small, but we do hope to have one piece of the puzzle to solve something much bigger, to change the way we think about waste to turn into an opportunity. They're exploring whether Polyfloss could be used for things like food packaging, sanitation, and agricultural products. It's a technology company, but it's very much also a social, political, and ecological endeavor that we're pursuing.