Abstract
The high global production of electric and electronic equipment increases in the same manner the amount of the waste that needs to be recycled. Special attention is given to the plastics recycling from the waste in addition to the metals recovery that brings economic advantages. Considering that the plastic amount contains about 80% polystyrene polymers, the paper presents a recycling study of this fraction as reinforcing agent for a styrene-butadiene block copolymer. In order to reduce the melt viscosity, some of the composites were extended with paraffin-naphthenic “heavy white oil”. The blends were characterized by mechanical testing, thermal and dynamo-mechanical analysis. Based on the resulted properties, it can be concluded that the extended and reinforced composites can be used as material for shoe soles.
Keywords: WEEE recycling; styrene-butadiene block-copolymer; WEEE polystyrene fraction; extended composites; paraffinic oil; reinforcing effect