A study of mechanical and rheological behavior of recycled spray painted parts

Environmentally sustainable development is not an option, but an imperative. Product discard is a growing pollution problem, as more electronics join the waste stream. As the world's raw materials dwindle from consumer demand, there is an urgency to work towards waste minimization. Plastic materials stand out as the single largest material component for which recycling solutions have not been developed. One of the greatest challenges for increasing the use of recycled plastics in new products is dealing with painted plastic parts. Paint is used as a decorative finish to enhance the appearance and aesthetics of many products. Painted enclosure parts represent a significant portion of the content of a product. Currently, most painted plastic parts are considered to be non-recyclable, due to the degradation of physical properties or cosmetic contamination when the parts are reground without removing the paint. Typically, these parts are either incinerated for energy recovery, sent as a mixed fraction to smelters for metals recovery or landfilled. The paper explores the possibility of improving painted reground plastic performance through the use of compatible paint coatings that are miscible with the base resin when reground, resulting in minimal physical property degradation and enhancing the value of this feedstream for reuse in new products.