Mechanical fatigue of recycled and virgin high‐/low‐density polyethylene

Abstract The high consumption rates of polymers generate large amounts of wastes imposing long‐term adverse effects on the environment combined with a significant carbon footprint. So the appeal for a circular economy is becoming loud enough to take actions. Despite increasing interests for polymer recycling, some reserves about their mechanical performances, especially long‐term properties such as fatigue resistance, are barriers to introduce more recycled polymers back into production lines. In this study, a comparison between the fatigue resistance of virgin and recycled high‐/low‐density polyethylene (H/LDPE) is made to provide more quantitative information to address these concerns. Although some recycled polymers (HDPE) show similar tensile properties compared to virgin ones, significant differences can be observed in their fatigue lifetime. So tensile testing alone is not sufficient to provide a complete information about the overall properties of recycled polymers. Our results show that recycling polymers does not necessarily result in reduced fatigue resistance.