ABSTRACT
The recycling of post-consumer wastes is becoming increasingly important in today’s world due to public awareness, legislative promotion and imposition, economic benefits and the availability of appropriate technologies (Baeyens et al., 2010). So, what is recycling of post-consumer waste? What do these terms mean? Typically, raw materials are processed so as to manufacture products for consumption. Any leftovers and/or obsolete products are then discarded. This linear process, from extraction of raw materials to production, then consumption and disposal, has created a waste crisis. To decrease this one-way flow of resources to overburdened waste disposal facilities, materials that are no longer needed or wanted can be remanufactured. This is what is termed ‘recycling’. According to the Master Recycler Program (2015), recycling is a dynamic process that restores the life cycle of a material. On the other hand, post-consumer material is defined as a waste material generated by households or by commercial, industrial and institutional facilities in their role as end users of the product which can no longer be used for its initial purpose (Leppo, 2009).
