Uncleaned plastic films constitute about 20% by mass and 8% by volume of Urban Solid Waste (USW). These amounts are worrying, because just 10% of all collected waste has a controlled final destination, in Brazil. One aggravanting problem in plastic film recycling is the effluent from washing, which can be very contaminated. The objectives of this study were: to develop procedures to clean the plastic films from USW; to characterize some washing effluents of these films; to reprocess HDPE and LDPE films separately with an antioxidant additive (together with a flow additive) and to determine the rheological properties of the recycled material. The experimental results showed that the washing water agitation time had a more important role in cleaning the plastic than the percentage of NaOH used in the washing step. Secondly, the effluent from wasu\ing was shown to carry quantity of organic material (BOD - 700 mg/l) and high turbidity. Lastly, the recycled material was perceptlibly altered only after the third reprocessing (extrusion).
Recycling; film; urban solid waste; effluent; degradation
