♻️🌱 Plastics Processing and Recycling - Rolbatch Academy - Webinars & Online Trainings

Real production defects in plastics processing can tell us far more than appearance alone. I am looking for photos of defects in pipes, profiles, sheets, films and other extruded plastic products. In return, I will provide a short technical comment: possible causes, areas to check first and directions for further analysis. The most interesting cases may inspire neutral examples in my upcoming book “Plastic Extrusion. Pipes • Profiles • Sheets • Films”. Submitted photos will not be published, and no company names, production sites, customers or production data will be disclosed.

In pipe production, losses rarely start with one major failure. More often, they begin earlier: during start-up, changeover, raw material changes, unstable calibration, recurring downtime or decisions made without a shared technical standard. This article shows where money really leaks in PE and PP pipe production, why reports often reveal the problem too late, and how operators, technologists, maintenance teams, safety managers and executives can reduce hidden losses by building a common understanding of the process.

Choosing a polymer family is only the first step. In real plastics processing, the decisive question is which specific raw material fits the product, tool, machine, throughput and quality requirements. PP, PE, ABS, PA, PC, POM, PET, PBT, PVC, PMMA, PPS or PEEK can behave very differently depending on flow, shrinkage, fillers, stabilisation and processing conditions. This article explains why material substitution should always be checked against the real process, not only against a data sheet, because the lowest price per kilogram can still create higher long-term production costs.