Running Head: RECYCLING AGAINST RADIATION 1

Recycling Against Radiation

George French and Zane Vandivere

1/24/19

Dr. Psaker
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Goals

We plan to perform our testing. We have set February 4 as the date of the experiment

with Reflection Dental. We may begin work on data analysis in the days immediately after the

testing. The progress report following the experiment will report our data collection and any data

analysis that we will have completed at that point. This data collection will be the final step in

the carrying out the physical experiment. All work from there will be data analysis and

preparation for the final presentation of the entire project.

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Accomplishments

Since our last progress report, we have worked on making our recycled HDPE shields. So

far, we have completed two and have started work on the last three. Now that we have had some

experience making the shields, we have made some revisions to our procedure. We removed

blending because it had no apparent effect on the plastic asides from stretching it out. We did not

end up using a mold; we were able to get the plastic into an appropriate shape on the griddle

using just a wooden spoon. However, we also needed to cut the hardened plastic to get it into the

proper shape. We also used parchment paper instead of wax paper. Finally, we decided to use 6

inch squares instead of 12 inch squares to save time and plastic. The focal point of the X-ray will

still be smaller than the surface area of the squares, so it should not have an effect on radiation

amounts in our data.

Figure 1. This image shows the shredded pieces of a plastic, HDPE milk jug.
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Figure 2. This was our test run with just a small amount of plastic. We saw that we would have

to make sure to fill in any gaps to prevent this from happening.

Figure 3. This image shows the shredded plastic, HDPE grocery bags, being melted into the

appropriate dimensions for the shields.

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Materials and Methods

After creating the first two shields, we decided to make some revisions to the procedure that

would reflect what we found to successful and eliminate what was useless.

Materials​:

- Pure (non-recycled) HDPE sheets

- Plastic HDPE waste

- X-ray machine

- Geiger counter

- Ruler

- Sanding tools

- Parchment paper

- Pancake griddle

- Oven

- Stirring rod

Procedure​:

Molding recycled plastic

1. Cut up recycled plastic with scissors.

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2. Arrange the shredded plastic on top of the parchment paper with the appropriate

dimensions

3. Heat the shredded plastic on the pancake griddle on top of parchment paper until

the pieces have begun to meld together.

4. Soften plastic in oven until the plastic reaches a uniform color and shape.

5. After about 15 to 20 minutes, remove the plastic from the oven and apply constant

pressure (using a textbook or such) to even out any irregularities on the surface of

the shield.
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Data and Results

We have no data to report yet.

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References

We have no additional references since the last report.