The team at Jag have over 15 years of working with recycled materials and creating products using local waste streams. We have produced alternatives to wall boards, roof tiles, bricks, and plywood. The properties of these materials have been validated independently and are being investigated for final manufacturing costs.
Over a decade ago, we developed a hybrid material using waste glass and engineered plastics. The material garnered interest from some of the major players in the industry, but they had no intention of taking it forward as it would impact their existing sales.
We developed a system to create prototype aluminium profiles using waste aluminium ground down and bonded with a resin. This mixture was then forced under pressure through dies to form the profile. This allowed for profiles to be tested for fit and form before committing to capital investment.
The company is currently working on several new materials from waste and is looking at using an abundant waste stream. The material is being combined with several other waste streams, and the intention is to create a new fire-retardant material that can be used in sustainable construction with a very low carbon footprint. The plan is to develop the manufacturing process over the next few months.
The need to use recycled plastics is key to every product we look design. Many companies produce pelletised waste plastics that can be used for injection moulding. It will be difficult to eradicate plastics in products, but alternatives can be sourced collectively.
Glass can be infinitely recycled, although clear glass is eleven times from the industry while coloured glass is a maximum of seven times. Glass can be used as a substrate for other materials to be combined with so many other materials to create new products.
Metals have been recycled for years, but the carbon footprint of re-processing has become a big issue for producers. For example, aluminium has to be heated from waste to form a large billet. It must then be re-heated to be extruded into the final product. So, the carbon footprint is huge and not what people expect.
Timber is the original recycled material; however, if it is shredded and bonded with adhesives, resins etc, it can be used to create forms. One issue, however, is the footprint of each plywood 8’ x 4’ sheet with 1 ton of C02 per sheet. As long as we keep growing trees, then we should always have a use for timber.
