Do materials made from recycled plastic create microplastics?

It’s an important question — and one that deserves a clear answer. Because not all plastic applications behave the same way. Microplastics are typically generated when plastic materials fragment under mechanical abrasion, ultraviolet exposure, and long-term environmental weathering. This tends to occur in applications where the material is continuously subjected to friction or gradual wear. For example: • Synthetic textiles can shed microscopic fibres during washing • Vehicle tyres slowly abrade against road surfaces during use   • Some road surfaces made with plastic waste gradually wear down under heavy traffic   In these situations, the material is constantly undergoing small-scale fragmentation as part of normal use. Approach taken towards recycling plastic waste is sometimes to shred and press multilayer plastic packaging (MLP) into boards. While this can help divert packaging waste from landfills, the structure of these boards is fundamentally different from fully compounded composites. The material is typically made by compressing shredded fragments together rather than chemically and mechanically integrating them into a dense composite matrix. Like many particle-based boards, these materials can release small fragments if the surface chips, cracks, or wears over time.  STRUCTURAL MATERIALS ARE DIFFERENT  At unWOOD, the goal is to convert mixed plastic waste into dense, durable structural profiles designed for long service life. The material is produced through intensive compounding in specially designed processing equipment, combining mixed plastic waste with mineral fillers that create a rigid and stable composite structure. These materials are typically used in applications such as furniture components, outdoor structures, and infrastructure elements, where the engineering objective is strength, dimensional stability, and durability — not gradual wear. Because of this, the material is not designed to continuously abrade during normal use. This distinction matters. When plastics are placed in applications where they are expected to slowly erode — such as tyres or certain road surfaces — fragmentation is an inherent part of the system. But when plastics are engineered into long-life structural products, the goal is the opposite: to keep the material stable, intact, and productive for as long as possible. That is one of the key principles behind converting mixed plastic waste into durable materials. The longer a material remains intact and useful, the less likely it is to enter the environment as fragmented waste.  

Wood Plastic Composite (WPC) was built around a simple idea: mix wood flour with plastic and form boards. It is a useful material and widely used, but its structure creates certain design and performance limitations.     Most WPC formulations combine polymer resins such as PVC, PE, or PP with fine wood fibres. The wood component provides stiffness, but it also means the material still depends on forestry-derived inputs and inherits some of the behaviours of wood. If you're thinking from a materials innovation perspective, the big limitation of WPC is that it still contains wood, which means moisture interaction never fully disappears. That’s exactly why many new material technologies try to remove wood fibres entirely while keeping the structural benefits. Because wood fibres are naturally hydrophilic, WPC materials can experience gradual moisture interaction over time. In demanding environments this can lead to: Moisture absorption within the wood fibre fraction Dimensional movement in high humidity conditions Gradual reduction in mechanical performance after prolonged exposure to water Long-term brittleness as organic fibres age These effects do not occur immediately, but they reflect the biological nature of the wood component within the composite. unWOOD was engineered using a different materials philosophy. Instead of combining wood with polymers, unWOOD eliminates organic fibres entirely. The material is produced primarily from mixed plastic waste streams, combined with earth mineral fillers that stabilises the structure. The result is a dense nano-fibrous structure with a different performance profile: Highly water resistant — no wood fibres that absorb moisture Resistant to termite damage — the material contains no cellulose or organic fibres Dimensional stability — minimal swelling or warping in humid environments Durable in outdoor conditions Designed for long service life in high humidity climates     But the most important difference is philosophical. WPC improves plastics by blending them with wood. Higher the wood content in WPC, higher the stiffness but lower the moisture resistance. Lower wood content makes it too flexible. While unWOOD takes a different path: it removes wood entirely and engineers mixed plastic waste into a structural material platform with very high stiffness approximately 3X higher than WPC. This approach allows material to be transformed into durable products designed for long lifetimes.  

It’s an important question. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in households are emitted by everyday products like cleaning agents, paints, glues, air fresheners, and personal care items (perfumes, hair sprays). Key sources also include furnishings made of plywood, particle board, upholstered furniture, new flooring etc. Many people assume that materials made from recycled plastics might also release strong odours or volatile compounds. Total volatile organic compounds emission from Particle Boards. View Source   Many people assume that materials made from recycled plastics might also release strong odours or volatile compounds. In practice, unWOOD behaves very differently. Independent laboratory testing has shown negligible VOC emissions from the material. One of the first things people notice when they handle unWOOD is simple: it does not have any smell. Interestingly, this is not always the case with many conventional wood-based boards such as plywood, MDF, or particle board. These materials rely on polymer resin binders to hold wood fibres together, and those resins can release volatile compounds over time. Very few boards are made to strict emission standards and are expensive, but in majority of the cases, people have experienced the characteristic “new furniture” or “closed room” smell without necessarily knowing its source. You can observe this in everyday life. Lock your house before going away for a long vacation. When you return and open the door, the first instinct is often to open the windows for ventilation. That slightly chemical, slightly stuffy smell in a closed room can come from trace volatile compounds slowly released by materials inside the house. Now consider the assumption many people make about recycled plastics. Most expect them to smell even more strongly. And in some recycled plastic products, that can indeed happen. When plastic waste is processed without careful control of volatiles, residual compounds can remain trapped in the material and become noticeable later. The reason unWOOD behaves differently lies in the manufacturing process. During production, the plastic waste undergoes controlled thermal processing in which volatile compounds are separated and captured. These volatile fractions are removed during the material preparation stage before the structural profiles are formed. By the time the material becomes unWOOD, most of the volatile components have already been extracted from the solid matrix. This processing step is a critical distinction. It allows mixed plastic waste to be transformed into a stable structural material with very low emissions, suitable for long-term use in furniture and infrastructure applications.   - Dr Babu Padmanabhan (Phd)