RECYCLED PLASTIC LUMBER: FROM PARK BENCHES TO BRIDGES

Thomas J. Nosker, Ph.D.

Richard W. Renfree, Ph.D.
The Plastics and Composites Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 248, Piscataway, NJ 08855-0248

ABSTRACT

The first applications of plastic lumber products were in non-structural applications such as
picnic tables and benches. As the industry has matured through the years, innovative research and
development work by the plastic lumber industry and universities has fostered the development of
superior performing products which in turn has begun to establish new and demanding structural
applications for these products. Much of the work has involved the application of composites
technology to the reuse of post-consumer and post-industrial materials in plastic lumber products.
This evolution, from non-structural applications through the development of structural materials
and their application will be discussed.

STAGE 1: Unreinforced or - Take my plastic.......PLEASE!

The plastic lumber industry (based on thermoplastic materials) originated in Japan and Europe, where
patent applications for newly designed equipment to make large cross-section materials were filed in the
early to mid-1970's 1,2,3 . Of course, in these locations, the availability of wood (especially prepared for
outdoor applications) is much lower than in the United States. These early pioneers utilized some of the
only materials available to them at a low price - post-industrial plastic waste.
In the United States, a few small entrepreneurs were entering the field by the mid-1980's. Examples
include NEW Inc., Processed Plastics, Inc., and Hammer’s Plastic Recycling. These efforts and others
worldwide were hindered by the limited and uncertain supply of raw materials, a lack of certifiable
performance, a significantly lower modulus as compared to wood along the growth axis, and a plentiful
supply of wood. The two main advantages of plastic lumber were most apparent when compared to
chemically treated wood, and these are that the material is benign to the environment and that it will not
degrade readily when used outdoors 4 .
By the mid-1980's, post consumer PET was beginning to become recycled from the earliest curbside
pickup recycling programs. When these programs were begun, they received a by-product of mixed non-
PET bottles. These bottles were called “curbside tailings”, and consisted of 80-90% HDPE bottles 5 .
Recycling dropoff centers and curbside programs looked at this material as a liability, but it was soon
found that this material was suitable for the large cross-sectioned plastic lumber market, and could be used
to produce lumber with reproducible properties but slightly varying color. By the early 1990's, large
quantities (more than 7.2 billion pounds per year) of curbside tailings were available for recycling, 6 but
the demand simply wasn’t there. The high cost of collecting recyclables and landfilling a portion of the
collected materials eventually led to the shut down of some major recycling efforts.
The first applications of plastic lumber were in non-critical, outdoor applications as a substitute for
treated wood. It is important when considering the substitution of any traditional material with a new
material to consider the required performance for the product and particular application in mind. At first,
relatively low stress applications were considered for plastic lumber. Many picnic tables and park benches
have been successfully produced from plastic lumber, and are performing satisfactorily. Some of the first
designs performed well when new but sagged with time. The manufacturers learned to design these
structures with lower stress on the elements to reduce the time dependent properties from affecting the
overall shape as much.
Many manufacturers found that they could produce decking boards to be fitted atop chemically
treated wooden frames. This application typically has fairly low values of dead load stress, and the time
dependent properties do not play a very important role in most cases. The biggest problem in these
applications seems to be the much larger thermal expansion coefficient of plastic lumber (particularly
when foamed) than wood. The bad news is that one cannot claim that the whole deck will not biologically
decay, or that it is not treated with hazardous materials. To make these claims, the whole structure should
be made from plastic and/or composites. Another seemingly natural application (pun intended) for plastic
lumber is offset blocks for highway guardrail posts. In this case, the most important properties are the
strength and ability to absorb energy as applied in compression orthogonal to the main axis, and the
resistance to degradation.
In outdoor applications, various types of treated woods are used in many applications. For example, in
the Eastern U.S., CCA treated yellow pine is typically used for treated decks. Creosote treated oak is
typically used for railroad ties. According to the USDA Wood handbook 7 , pines and oaks typically have
moduli of at least 1 million psi, and strengths of 2,400 and 3,500 respectively, when measured along the
axis. The performance of wood is complicated due to the fact that wood has knots, and wood has
properties that deteriorate when left outside, unpainted. Despite chemical treatment, wood also rots
eventually and must be replaced.
The mechanical properties of unreinforced polyethylene based plastic lumber understandably had
properties similar to polyethylene, with virgin polyethylene as an upper bound (modulus of 160,000 psi.
and ultimate strength of 3,500 psi. 8 ). The reason for this is that cooling a large cross-section,
semicrystalline polymer product creates voids in the interior. In most cases, these voids possess an
apparently random size and shape. Impurities in these materials represent material inclusions 9 . To address
this problem, many manufacturers practice foaming to reduce the maximum size of voids. This can be
done a small amount without affecting properties, but a high level of foaming can significantly reduce
stiffness and strength, while increasing the thermal expansion coefficient. There is an economic incentive
to a high level foaming (without regard to properties), because more board-feet of lumber materials can be
produced per pound of plastic utilized, and boards are sold according to board feet.
It is interesting to note that a comparison of woods mechanical properties along the grain with plastic
and plastic lumber indicates that the lower modulus of plastic is a much bigger issue than any strength
comparison 10 . Incidentally, wood is several times less stiff and strong when measured orthogonal to the
growth axis as compared to along the growth axis. Most any plastic lumber compares rather favorably in
terms of both stiffness and strength in this situation.
The materials that are typically used in plastic lumber are viscoelastic in terms of their mechanical
properties. This means that there is a time-dependence to their mechanical properties 11 . In other words, if
a structure is loaded to a certain load level and the deflection of that structure is measured right after the
load is applied, the deflection is expected to increase by some value for each increment of time as the load
remains applied. To further complicate matters, the deflection will increase more during the first day than
the second. The deflection will occur each day at ever decreasing rates, unless a crack opens up in the
material. This effect can be minimized by design with lower levels of stress.
The two basic problems that unreinforced plastic lumber have in some substitutional applications for
wood are, 1) lower modulus, and 2) even lower modulus when loaded over a long time. The two key
advantages that these materials have is that they are not subject to degradation (perhaps unless filled with
a high percentage of wood), and that they do not leach harmful chemicals into the soil or groundwater.
 It should be mentioned that some very successful applications for plastic lumber types of products
have been developed for which concrete or other materials are the traditional material to be used. These
include construction curbs, removable speed bumps, parking lot stops, bollards, and others.
Many structurally more demanding applications have been attempted, and all have met with some
level of success. Applications have included joists, railroad ties, marine pilings, and vehicular bridge sub-
structures. These all required some type of reinforcement in order to achieve the properties necessary
success. The development of ASTM test methods to evaluate the properties of plastic lumber and compare
them has opened up real possibilities to engineer structures with these materials.12

STAGE 2: Bring in the Reinforcements !

The development of some kind of composite had to be considered in order to achieve the properties
necessary to substitute for some treated wood applications. The key properties which need improvement in
plastic lumber when being considered for structural applications are typically the modulus and the time
dependent mechanical behavior. These are indirectly related to each other, and are both improved by
producing a composite of some type.
The first plastic company that recognized this situation was Tri-max, back in 1989-90.13 They
developed a continuous extrusion process which utilized 20-30 % fiberglass and foaming to produce a
stiffer product than would be obtainable with the same composition without fiberglass. Glass is about
three times the density of the polymer component, so foaming was desirable to keep the weight down. The
polymer component was originally washed curbside tailings, but they found that washing wasn’t necessary
and was costly. Products produced to date include sheet pilings, structural plastic lumber, and marine
pilings.
Rutgers University researchers also recognized that plastic lumber ought to be reinforced in order to
enter structural markets, and developed a polymer-polymer composite with high stiffness and high
strength in 1988-89.14 This process utilized unwashed curbside tailings and up to 35% recycled
polystyrene, depending upon the properties desired. This technology is currently licensed to Polywood,
Inc., where it is being utilized for a number of structural plastic lumber applications, including the
substructure for decks and the first vehicular bridge made from plastic lumber.
Later, in 1994-95, the same group found that short glass fibers were capable of being oriented in a
curbside tailings matrix, requiring only about 10-12% percent fiberglass to obtain high strength and
stiffness values.15 This technology is currently licensed to US Plastic Lumber, Inc., where it is being
utilized for railroad ties.
Seaward, Inc. has developed a number of products utilizing continuous glass fiber reinforcement held
together with traditional thermosetting plastic (in the shape of rods) molded with HDPE. 16 In this
interesting design, the fiberglass members act as rebars supporting the less rigid thermoplastic material.
The fiberglass rods are placed strategically and symmetrically about the central axis. This technology has
been used to produce marine pilings and walers. It seems to work well as a fender piling.
Creative Pultrusions, Inc. has developed a marine piling product based on a continuous pultruded “tic-
tac-toe” cross-section of fiberglass and thermoset plastic encased in an HDPE tube.16 A variety of
materials have been used as fillers in fender piling applications using this concept.
Plastic pilings with a steel pipe core have been produced by Plastic Pilings Inc. and Hammer’s Plastic
Recycling, Inc.16 A four inch layer of HDPE is molded onto the outside of several sizes of steel pipe.
Also, Plastic Pilings, Inc. has produced a product with HDPE molded around and encasing a welded rebar
cage. These may not meet the formal definition of a composite, but they are mentioned here for
completeness, because they are large products being substituted for wood that are HDPE based. These
products have been used as structural plastic lumber members and fender pilings.
The best approach to gain market acceptance is to focus on performance with these new materials.
The goal should be to determine as accurately as possible the lifetime costs of the new material. Many
industries are interested investing in alternate materials technology, if it has a larger up front cost, if it can
be proven that the annualized cost will be lower. With most of these materials that do not contain high
percentages of degradable organic material, degradation will not be a big issue with the new product. The
way many of these materials will fail will be determined by the mechanical properties of these materials.
Without reinforcement, HDPE based plastic lumber will be modulus limited in most applications.
Structural materials make possible the once unattainable all-plastic and composite structure. Still, much
laboratory testing is necessary before any new material can be considered to be used based on purely
liability issues. Much more work is required in order to generate data required to show expected lifetimes
and generate lifetime cost information.

STAGE 3- Oh, and it feels good, too!

A number of side issues regarding plastic lumber and related reinforced plastic lumber products
frequently come into play when considering using these materials. The authors have heard many such
issues and claims, and will only list here the most compelling of such issues.
The manufacture and use of post-consumer plastic lumber represents the recycling of a material
which would ordinarily be destined for the landfill.
Recycling collection programs tend to be concentrated in areas where the density of suc h materials is
most high, and where landfills are either filling up quickly or are already full. These areas tend to be urban
areas. As shipping of recyclable materials represents a considerable expense compared to the value of
these materials, manufacturing facilities tend to be located rather near the points of collection. As these
businesses represent new businesses which previously did not exist, they represent new manufacturing
businesses in urban areas. Hardly a better political card can be played.
The authors of this paper have been involved with a number of projects involving the application of
all of these technologies as replacement materials in civil engineering and other applications. We believe
that the future bodes well for these materials, and that tremendous expansion and growth will occur within
these and related industries. Furthermore, the United States is well ahead of the rest of the world in these
technologies at this point in time, and many opportunities exist for the exporting and licensing of these
technologies worldwide. Remember, post-industrial plastic lumber development occurred elsewhere first,
and that is because other parts of the world have far fewer natural resources in the way of trees than we do.
We caught up and passed the other countries because of the perceived plastic waste problem, and the
ready supply of post-consumer plastic.
Without recycling, large cross-sectioned, polyethylene composite structures might never have been
considered. This material is reasonably strong at it’s upper limits, but possesses too low of a modulus for
typical structural composite applications. The low cost of these materials obtained from recycling
collection and sorting systems has had a strong influence upon the choices of materials. These
technologies produce low-cost composites that are themselves recyclable, and provide low-cost
performance. They are well on their way to finding their place in the world’s infrastructure.
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