Design from recycling: Overcoming barriers in regranulate use in a circular economy

Abstract

Despite government and consumer attitudes, industry's use of recycled material remains low and narrowly scoped. Critical advances in recycling practices and technology depend on increased scope of application for regranulates, which can be achieved through design from recycling principles. We investigated regranulates and laboratory reprocessed material in the context of processing, ability to meet functional requirements, viability of closed loop recycling, design strategies and co-dependent industry reforms. Reprocessing results in polymer degradation, changes in melt flow rate (MFR) and tensile impact strength (atN) and restricts polymer processing options. Contamination and multilayer packaging cause changes in MFR, atN, elastic modulus (E) and elongation at break (εb) affecting ability to meet application-specific functional requirements. The problem is complex, whereby the preferences and requirements of recyclers, designers, industry, and consumers are contradictory. New high value regranulate applications using clever design practices are necessary to finance new sorting and processing technology in addition to industry and consumer tolerance and conservative product expectations to circumvent these competing interests.