Sources and types of plastic caps and properties characterization of plastic ropes produced from different types of plastic caps

Bangladesh produces massive amounts of plastic products to meet the huge population demand. Jashore (Bangladesh) is well-known for discarding huge numbers of plastic caps (PCs). PCs are made up of hard polymer of polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Jashore was chosen as the study area because huge quantities of PCs are produced here and plastic rope (PR) is prepared using PCs. About 70 % of PCs came from drinking items, 20 % from toiletries items, 7 % from kitchen items, and rest 3 % from unidentified sectors. About 44.0 % of caps were blue, 35.0 % were red, 11.0 % were green, 5.0 % were yellow, 3.0 % were white, and 2.0 % were ash color. About 52 % of caps were prone to damage, 26.0 % were discolored, 15.0 % were slightly damaged, and about 7.0 % were intake. Additionally, different types of ropes (ash color; red color; yellow color, white color, blue color, rasmi, nylon, cotton, jute, and polyester rope) were collected and some mechanical characterization were performed to determine their sustainability. The internal structure of the ash, red, and yellow color PC rope, silk, jute, and cotton rope did not have any structural deformation, but the blue color rope, nylon, and polyester showed a wide range of structural deformation. Tensile strength (TS) was determined using a Universal Testing Machine (UTM), the internal structure was determined using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and chemical characterization was determined using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The characteristics of PR were compared with the characteristics of other ropes. The highest strength was in silky (5315 Mpa) and nylon (2461.5) ropes. FTIR results showed that the chemical structure of CO stretching was in 1800 cm−1, and OCO stretching was in 2349 cm−1 spectrum in PC samples. It can be said that the strength could be dependent on the chemical composition of the ropes.