SUMMARY: Acceptance of wood plastic composites as a substitute for plastics and wood is a major driving force for increased annual production of wood plastic composites for large number of applications. In USA, Europe and India its demand is increasing day by day. Due to depleted oil resources there is a great need to find some alternatives for plastics which….
The use of post consumer plastic waste for the production of wood plastic composites: A Review
S. MEHMOOD*, A. KHALIQ° AND S.A. RANJHA
- Materials Research Division, Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Technical University of Denmark
- Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Pakistan
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Pakistan
SUMMARY: Acceptance of wood plastic composites as a substitute for plastics and wood is a major driving force for increased annual production of wood plastic composites for large number of applications. In USA, Europe and India its demand is increasing day by day. Due to depleted oil resources there is a great need to find some alternatives for plastics which can be used for such composites. One option is to use post consumer plastic waste instead of virgin plastics. A large portion of post consumer plastic waste which is recycled and used for low grade applications can be used to produce wood plastic composites. The post consumer plastic waste which is landfilled and incinerated can also be used as a feed stock for such composites after separation of metallic and non metallic contaminants. Hence there is no need to separate the individual plastics because they can be processed together by mechanical alloying to get a plastic blend with improved properties. So a great portion of plastic waste which otherwise is landfilled probably could be utilized as a feedstock for WPCs
