Green composites of organic materials and recycled post-consumer polyethylene

Addition of organic fillers to post-consumer recycled plastics can give rise to several advantages. First of all, the cost of these fillers is usually very low, the organic fillers are biodegradable contributing to an improved environmental impact and, last but not least, some mechanical and thermomechanical. properties can be enhanced. Organic fillers are not widely used in the plastic industry although their use is increasing. Bad dispersion into the polymer matrix at high-level content and poor adhesion with the matrix are the more important obstacles to this approach. In this work various organic fillers have been used with a post-consumer plastic material originating from films for greenhouses. The properties of these green composites have been compared with those of materials filled with a conventional inorganic filler. The organic fillers cause slightly worse processability, due to an increase of viscosity, an enhancement of the rigidity and of the thermomechanical resistance similar to that measured for the inorganic filler, while a reduction of the impact strength is observed. (C) 2004 Society of Chemical Industry.