The invention relates to a method and apparatus for using recycled plastic material, and to a plastic product produced by an extruder. A signal representative of a first data unit having a higher signal-to-noise ratio may be detected prior to a signal representative of a second data unit having a lower signal-to-noise ratio, and then may be used to improve the signal representative of the second data unit. The card memory device integrates components into a thin flexible memory card with surface contacts so that the components can cooperate as a compact unit providing environmental sealing and secure access to several Mbytes of digital data.