Injection molding is a way to use waste plastic and other types of polyurethane to make useful new products you use every day. Below are the 4 basic steps used in injection molding, an innovative process that manufactures many products you may find in some surprising places in your own home.

Used products, often considered waste, can be easily recycled using the concept of injection molding. Injection molding takes polystyrene, nylon, polypropylene and other types of polyurethane (plastic), and melts them down to form a new product.

The process of injection molding follows 4 basic steps.

• Step 1. Thermoplastics are processed through a grinding machine that turns the material into tiny granules, or plastic powder. These granules are poured into a large hopper, which stores the material until ready for the next step.
• Step 2. The granules are passed across a gradient that heats the plastic powder. Once they reach a high enough temperature to become a gelatinous liquid, they are shifted into a compartment of the machine that looks like a giant screw.
• Step 3. As the plastic grows more liquefied, this screw thread begins to turn, which forces the granules across even more intense heat. This produces a fluid liquid that is easily poured into the chambers of a particular product mold.
• Step 4. After a few moments of curing time, the mold is opened and the new plastic item is removed. A few rough edges are sanded off and a useful item has been made from recycled plastic.

While the idea of injection molding is continually being modified and perfected, there are already hundreds of interesting items being manufactured using the process. Here are three common places where you might easily find products that are shaped from recycled plastic using the injection mold procedure.

Your Car

Car bumpers and dashboards are just two of the large items that can be made using the process of injection molding. Many smaller plastic pieces inside your car also use come via the same recycling of plastics. Radio knobs, turn signal handles and door locks are just a few of the many parts of an automobile manufactured using injection molding.

Your Bathroom

The number of things that are in your own bathroom that are made using injection molding might astound you. Soap dishes, toothbrushes, combs and hairbrushes, plus toilet cleaning brushes are just a handful of the many plastic things you use everyday in your bathroom that were molded using recycled plastic.

Your Tool Shed

Gardening products are other types of products that are easily made using injection molding. Many of the molds for simple garden tools and flowerpots are easy to pour and require less time finishing the product for sale. Hand spades, shovel and rake handles, water cans, plus decorative flowerpots are some of the common items you may use that are made very day using injection molding.

New and useful products are created using injection molding from plastics that otherwise would have been considered garbage. As the process is perfected, it gives you an even stronger reason to recycle all the plastic that you possibly can.