today we travel down to Marshall Tufflex to see how plastic conduit has been made but while you're
holding a window because interestingly white plastic conduit is mostly made from recycled
windows so we're going to go inside we're going to meet Darren Blake the manufacturing manager
and see how it's done now that doesn't look like a plastic window to me believe it or not this
was once a PVCu Windows that's been crushed down into a format that we can use in our compounding
process and you're going to turn that into a plastic conduit is there anything in there that
needs to be removed for that process can start yes this will still have a level of contaminant that
we'll take out at the next step so the material is going to now be fed down into the hopper on
top of the compounder where we'll add a master batch or any colorant to it as it falls down
into the machine into the barrel onto the screws it's then fed down the screws where the material
goes from a solid state to a molten state so we've actually heated it up to make it now a
liquid so yes the material will pass down the barrel this is an example one we've got opened
up we'll pass down the screws over the flights screws and be pushed at the end of the machine
it'll now come into contact with the filters and the die plate so we've got back in filter
and a fine mesh screen 120 micron so this is the front face of that die that's correct and on the
other side of the die we'll have the filter plates which left the pancake behind it with
the contaminants what sort of contaminants will I find in that pancake anything non-pvc basically
so it could be aluminum steel brass copper nylon wood stone this is a whole multitude that we'll
take out at this point so this is the die with the material being pushed through it slowed down
and what's happening now so there's a series of knives on the cutting head to give us our
pellet so we're now ready to make PVC conduit then not quite we've got to cool the pellet
down because it's still quite hot so we'll run it through the cooler we'll take out any oversized
pellets and pass the good pellet through and up into the bag stand so what you're putting into
bags we're putting it into bags before the silo so we can just do some quality insurance checks
we'll run it through a small lab extruder where we'll produce a strip so we can look at surface
finish so we're looking for any inclusions or contaminant that might pass through we can also
cut the strip down and do a colour check on it to make sure that the material meets our standard so
what you're trying to say there is you don't want to pollute the silos with something that
would then enter the factory and find you've got a big error so this process here means that we only
send the good quality material in to make the conduits and trunkings that's correct so let's
remind ourselves what we had on the left hand side is the feedstock that we started with the recycled
windows and on the right hand side is the pellet that we're going to be putting into the silos so
if we were to fill these three silos with those pellets how many lengths of conduit could I make
well those silos there's enough capacity for 144 tons of material which is enough material to make
a quarter of a million lengths of 25 mil conduit from the silos the materials fed into the factory
into the extreme machines where it comes into the hopper is it now very similar to the compounding
process we saw at the start of the video yes it is we're going to take the material that's in a
solid state in the pellet we're going to feed it into the extruder down the barrel and screws of
the extruder where it's heated melted and then pushed through the die to form the shape of the
conduit that we're trying to achieve those pellets are now finally starting to look like conduit but
is it hot yeah it's 180 degrees as it leaves the dye so we've got to add vacuum and cooling to it
to hold its shape so we've got a solid product at the end of it that we can pass through the
printers and the downstream equipment the printers we can add date code time any relevant standard
markings or logo web address all that information we can add to it and obviously the product itself
we're seeing 25 millimeter conduit being made you make any other sizes yes we make 20 25 and 32 mil
conduit in light gauge and head for gauge both high impacts mostly in white we also offer black
the machine is cutting it into a three meter length how many lengths will getting a bundle
30 lengths to a bundle we'll be packing these ones I've had a little bit of a moment here I'm
thinking about this video and I'm thinking now when I'm on site installing conduit could I turn
around and say to the other trades on site I'm actually also installing windows that's possible
they may laugh for you at this point but you are actually using a product that's made from 80% plus
recycled PVCu windows I like it so on site now I'm fitting windows you might have a challenge getting
some glass into your mind the final stage of the process is now to pack the product this is a
manual operation on this line but we do have lines that are automated at their own packing set on it
this will now be sleeve for protection labels applied to identify the product quantity Etc it'll
then be shipped off to our distribution center on a stillage what a fascinating process that was
to see PVC conduit being made and as I move this palette onto the trunking I can see mini trunking
and if you want to see how incredible that is to be made check out the video on the screen now