Patent ID: 7638077

Claim:
A method of making drainage elements from recycled thermoplastic plastics materials comprising the steps of: a) providing chopped waste thermoplastic plastics to an agglomerator; b) agglomerating the waste plastics and wherein the mechanical energy imparted by the agglomerator heats the plastics material to about the melting point of a proportion of said thermoplastic plastics material so that malleable noodles of softened plastics material extrudes from an outlet of said agglomerator; c) conveying said noodles to a chute of a compactor/shaper funnel having an outlet disposed closely above an output conveyor belt; d) arranging the belt to convey from the outlet of the compactor/shaper funnel a compacted ribbon of said agglomerated plastics material at a rate such that the noodles in the funnel have a head to compact said noodles in the outlet sufficient to meld the noodles together but not without leaving multiple spaces between them; and e) cooling the ribbon and chopping it into batts.