The process effectively has unlimited size potential and as with similar productiuon technologies the size limitations are imposed by other aspects such as transportation of product to market. The alpha line at Bedwas is designed for products up to 2.2m x 2.4m x 200mm thick. Thus one mould for sheet material is currently producing sheets 2 of 2.4m x 1.0m x 19mm thick and 1 of 2.4m x 0.15m x 19mm thick. The permuations within the overall 2.2m x 2.4m x 200mm limit are endless. This line lends itself to mass production of products such as flat sheet, hoarding, trench supports, floor / wall panels and even scaffold boards.

The process itself is capable of producing much larger products but this will be dependent upon the design of a new line(s). In fact the Deep Draw Project is currently developing technology for larger products such as water tanks.

It all depends upon the specification of the product being manufactured, the weight of the product and the required consistency of the core foam, but can include all polymer families in a co-mingled state, including high melt temperature materials.

If domestic plastic waste was made up of varying percentages of a fairly predictable suite of polymers. And this blend just for instance was always between 0 - 66% of Polyethylene (various grades), 0 - 66% Polypropylene (various grades) and 0 - 66% PET (Polyethylene Terethphalate), 0 - 10% Other polymers e.g. Nylons, acrylamides etc. This definition obviously allows for considerable batch to batch variation in the "waste" and these are purely invented numbers. For typical products, good results are obtained with a majority percentage of "olefinic" (LDPE, HDPE or PP) in the core. This blend of materials can usually consist of co-mingled post consumer waste, blended with other recycled PE materials, such as used agricultural film, post industrial use PE, pulverised polymer material from WEEE recycling and/or Virgin material. These materials can also include non-polymer contamination such as paper. We have to blend post-use recycled materials from several sources to obtain consistent batches for optimal consistency, but there are product opportunities that can use over 90% co-mingled plastic waste. The first trials of eco-sheet have used over 75% waste electrical (WEEE) material with considerable success.

Does this process tolerate additional (to those already in waste plastics) fibre reinforcement materials, or other inert filler materials and if so what impact, if any, would including them have on the preparation and processing of the "powder"? Short fibres actually benefit the performance of products being manufactured. Long fibres can cause issues in delivery into the mould, but can be size reduced prior to delivery into the PIM mould.