Hi, pierdesign,
I'm pretty sure it is the plastic pellets themselves that had the odor because I could smell the chemical smell each time I used them. Update: The recycling plant from which I bought the smelly pellets invited me to bring them back and they gave me an even trade on virgin...
"Buy new virgin appropriate grade of material and sleep at night."
Good advice. I'm working toward that for sure. I got an email late this afternoon from the recycling plant that has been supplying me this past year, and they have offered to take back all of my current beads in exchange for...
:) For the record, I am 'the wife'. :) Kris is short for Kristi.
Compositepro, in your experience, once I steam strip the beads to the point of being relatively odorless, should I expect the odor to stay away, or is that just a temporary fix?
Kristi
Wait, I just re read your post. You said 'vacuum dry' not 'freeze dry'. I have to go look that up and see if that is something I can do. Sorry about my misquote/mis-read.
Kristi
btrueblood, that explains why sometimes after washing the beads, making a blanket with them, and then washing and putting the blanket in the dryer (heating up the 'volatile compounds') makes some of the odor reappear...but it disappears again after the blanket cools off from the dryer.
I do not...
"Sometimes you need to actually solve problems like this, other times you just need to accurately specify what you actually need."
Truer words have never been spoken. There is a learning curve in this (for me), and I know that I'll get more of what I actually want the more I learn how to...
Pat, thank you. I had wondered if there was a possibility that the recycled plastic could even contain food waste. Eeeew.
Chris, I have a question that I am sure will show the full extent of my ignorance...if recycled plastic could contain food waste, then could recycled medicine bottles...
Hi, btrueblood,
Thank you for that link. The smell is definitely a chemical odor...or maybe a solvent odor...I wouldn't know the difference. :( I'm sorry.
I tried rinsing the beads, rinsing them in vinegar, putting fans on them (thinking they just needed to air out), setting them out in...
Thank you so very, very much, Mike and Chris.
Chris, thank you for name dropping some starting places for researching suppliers. I tried several different Google searches but I couldn't seem to hit on the right search terminology to turn up the type of suppliers I need. I have minimal...
Thank you, Mike. In your experience, when I start shopping around for a virgin materials supplier, am I better off pursuing PP or PE in terms of price and odor?
Kristi
I am the owner of a weighted blanket business (used in treating Sensory Processing Disorders...common with Autism). I am not an engineer, so please forgive any inconsistencies in my question.
I have been using underwater processed PE pellets from a plastics recycling plant as weighting...
