Sardar M Shauddin^1,, Chironjit K Shaha^{1, 2}, Mubarak A Khan¹

In spite of banning thin polyethylene bag, it has been used in Bangladesh by both retailer and consumer for its convenience and affordability and most utility comes from packaging retailed goods. There is a serious concern among consumers and environmentalists about the environmental impacts on plastic bags. Due to lack of proper plastic waste management our environment is becoming more and more polluted day by day. In the present study, an eco-friendly technique was adopted for reducing such type of pollution by reusing polyethylene shopping bag as polymer matrix in composite. Jute mill wastage which is commonly known as jute caddies (JC) reinforced waste polyethylene (WPE) based low cost randomly oriented discontinuous fibrous composite was fabricated using traditional hand layup method. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) was used to investigate the chemical composition of both raw jute and jute caddies. Jute caddies content in the composite was varied from 20 to 45% where, 32% JC enriched composite showed the best performance in mechanical tests. Mechanical properties such as tensile and bending of composites were evaluated following several standard tests and methods. Jute caddies reinforced low density polyethylene (LDPE) based another type composite (JC/LDPE) was also fabricated to compare with JC/WPE. In order to increase the bonding strength between fiber and matrix, both types of composites were irradiated with gamma rays of dose varied from 2.5 to 12.5 kGy where, composites irradiated with 5 kGy dose delivered the best results. Water absorption tests of the composites according to the fiber content were done successfully for knowing the water resistance properties.

environmental pollution, polyethylene bag, jute caddies, recycling and reusing, low cost composite