Abrasive grit blasting recycling

Sponsored Links

Abrasive grit blasting processes use abrasive grit blasting media as their consumables. And needless to say there is a big interest in recycling abrasive grit blast media. Now this interest comes from several angles. First of all the accountants and bean counters always complain that too much money is spent on abrasive grit blasting media. Of course you can always retort saying that too much money is spent on the accounting department, but then that would not go too well. Second of all, there is an interest on the part of everyone to have a recycling program so that we do not waste our resources; this is therefore from the point of view of environmental impact. And of course everyone wants to be a good citizen of the world. Thirdly, the interest in recycling abrasive grit blast media comes from the business and company bottom line angle. If the spent grit from one job can be re-used again, then the company saves money which means the bottom line improves which means everyone earns more ( especially the accountants )

So in this post, we will deal with abrasive grit blasting media recycling. There are two terms in this regard that get used a lot. One is media recycling and the other is media reclamation; and over time, the two terms have kind of come to be used interchangeably. In my opinion though, the two mean two different things. The former is to do with recycling the material; the latter is to do with trapping and preventing the material from blowing all over the factory. In either case let us stick with recycling abrasive grit blast media for now in the true sense of the word.

The simplest way to recycle is to take the virgin material and after its use a specified number of times on new jobs, to take it and use it in something that is less demanding of an application within the same shop. For example, after you have finished two batches of blasting aerospace hardware and have deemed the grit to be unuseable, you use it in blasting some pump casings that are to be used in sewer pumps ( not really life threatening components ). This will save some money.

A second way is to take the spent grit and simply sell it to someone else who may have a need for even less of an exacting application. For example, you can sell the grit to an industrial flooring contractor, who may use it in developing anti-skid industrial flooring. Or you may sell it to someone who is in the business to grit blasting tomb stones Do not laugh, because I worked at a company that was an aerospace contractor who sold their used grit to a small time operator who manufactured tomb stones and gave a nice blasted finish to these monuments prior to selling them

This second way is what I get impressed about; because you could use your imagination in finding and locating companies that can use your spent grit. And the reward is that you end up making some money.