Ecofriendly composite/nanocomposite from discarded addition and condensation polymers

It is common knowledge the extraction of raw material from the environment has occurred without control. Besides, the inappropriate disposal of polymers (plastics and rubbers) jointly with other materials has brought serious environmental problems. Starting from these premises, two pieces of evidence emerge: the exhaustion of the planetary resources and the lack of behavior toward sustainable development. The main attitude is related to human concern. The disposal of various kinds of waste – plastics in particular – has generated harmful effects on the terrestrial environment on the quality of the air, as well as the presence of microplastics in the marine environment. All of them are truths that compromise the existence of future generations. Polymers present great heterogeneity and grade diversity. These are factors that make the recycling of post-consumer plastic waste even harder. Although many plastic products are composed of an aggregation of different thermoplastic or thermoset polymers, their separation processes must be refined. It is imperious the feasible description of each plastic component along the whole body of the artifacts and to render valuable the plastic waste as applied for the glass, aluminum, metals, and paper/cardboard. In this chapter, a scientific and technological approach will be carried out on the reuse of post-consumer addition and condensation polymers, to obtain sustainable materials for application as a commodity and as engineering polymer composites/nanocomposites.