Improving the value of mixed polymer recycle streams

Many plastics applications — notably, plastic packaging — involve laminated or coextruded materials that are difficult or cost-prohibitive to separate after manufacture and use. (For an in-depth review of multilayer packaging structures, see the DuPont Packaging Web site.)

Each of the plastics in such as multilayer packaging structure may offer its own useful individual performance such as heat sealing, barrier performance, chemical resistance, stiffness, etc. Their combined performance would be difficult to achieve in a mono-material.

When mixed plastics enter the recycle stream, their ability to be reused often is limited by processing difficulty or properties loss. These properties can be enhanced by adding compatibilizers. The following table reviews compatibilizers from DuPont that can aid in building higher-value products from the common mixed plastics waste streams.