Waste management and recycling technologies in Europe are far ahead of South Africa, where most tasks are still performed manually by staff trained on the job and with little quality control. This can be expected to result in polymeric impurities of recycled plastic, which will affect the quality of products made from these recycled resources. Polymeric components do typically not mix well and impurities in recycled plastic may lead to a phase separation and subsequent loss of mechanical strength. The sorting and processing methods of recycled low density polyethylene (LDPE) were studied in two recycling companies in South Africa and the quality of the recycled LDPE was studied with Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The results showed several polymeric as well as non-polymeric impurities, such as paper and ink.

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