Abstract
Since the Act for Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances was put into effect in 2001, Japan consumer electronic manufacturers have had to assume responsibility for 50-60wt% recycling of all disposed household appliances. Also, in expectation of a future rise in required recycling rates, it will be necessary to develop new material recycling technologies for plastics. The purpose of this study is to uncover effective utilization methods for the various residual plastics that are collected from consumer electronic recycling plants, waste that is presently being reclaimed and incinerated. The paper evaluates the relationship between contamination amounts and the mechanical properties of recycled polypropylene sorted from a mixture of residual plastics from waste household appliances. The purity of the recycled PP was 99.8% or more. The mechanical properties and the coefficient of variation for the mechanical properties of the recycled PP were almost equal to that of virgin PP. Due to the fact that some metal remains in the recycled PP, it is necessary to add a metal deactivator to the recycled PP in order to obtain a heat resistance comparable to that of virgin PP.
