Separation and recycling of polymeric post-industrial waste from adhesive bandages

The use of polymer has been showing an increasing consumption in the industry for the production of several consumer goods, mainly for the manufacturing of disposable products that can involve the combination of polymers with other materials. Nowadays, the annual production of polymers in the world exceeds 300 million tons. The industrial processes for these materials lead to a wide production of post-industrial waste that are highly complex and challenging for mechanical recycling due to the difficulty in separation step of macro-contaminant for this kind of waste. In this sense, the aim of this current study was to research and develop an efficient separation process with low cost for recycling of post-industrial scraps generated from production of adhesive bandage, which consisted of multiple layer films containing polymers, copolymers and cellulose. The polymeric waste was submitted to the well-established process called hydro-pulping, which does not require the use of chemical additives, resulting in efficient separation of cellulose pulp, while the residual polymer has been submitted to the thermomechanical processing by extrusion and injection molding. The separation of the polymers from cellulose by hydro-pulping method was successful. Therefore, the mechanical recycling of adhesive bandage waste presents full conditions for practical use.