Today I began experimenting with plastic and how I can re-purpose it. I have a table that I built out of old bike rims a while ago and it still needs a top so I think I am going to try and make an all recycled plastic top for it. I first started attempting to melt wrapped plastic on the top rim as a base. I used a candle but didn't get very good results. Either the plastic was too thin and would catch on fire, or it just shriveled up and didn't really attach to itself or the bike rim.
All of that was done using plastic packaging from products or food.
Then I decided to see if I could fuse plastic grocery bags. I dug out a bunch from our bag drawer, set the iron to its hottest, and put the bags in between some parchment paper, and it worked! The bags not only fused to themselves but also to each other and none of them burned! The fused bags created a much more durable, thick material that could probably be sewn or possibly turned into a solid product if there were enough plys of plastic added. I made some flat sheets and started a bowl:
Fused bags look like x-ray photos with backlighting:
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