After primary uses of the plastic product, most developing countries like Ethiopia are facing a shortage of postconsumer disposal waste sites and it became a very serious problem on environmental pollution due to its nonbiodegradable nature. For this reason, regenerating and using the waste product as resources and reducing environmental pollutions are a great opportunity. This research is aimed at the manufacturing of composite materials from waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) bottles reinforced with glass fibers and filled with waste glass powder for floor tile applications. The tile composites were prepared by the melt-mixing method followed by compression molding. The effect of filler, fiber, and PET matrix loading on the composite was investigated using their tensile, compression, and flexural strength tests. The sample was characterized using a universal testing machine. PerkinElmer FTIR instrument was also used. For this, eleven samples prepared by varying the glass fiber weight % from 0 to 10, PET matrix weight % from 70 to 85, and glass powder filler weight % from 5 to 20. The measurement results of the composite were maximum tensile strength (81.625 MPa) and flexural strength (1067.59 MPa) recorded at 10%weight of glass fiber, 85% weight of PET matrix, and 5%weight of window glass filler. The maximum compressive strength is 1876.14 MPa at 10% weight glass fiber, 70 wt% PET matrix, and 20 wt% window glass filler. Based on this, the tensile strength and flexural strength increased with increased weight % of glass fiber and decreased with increased window glass filler. The FTIR spectrum shows some of the groups that have been removed from the recycled PET; this explains the brittleness of the recycled PET as compared to the waste bottle PET. The microstructure was uniformly distributed, and the material became opaque, probably because the decrease in chain length improves chain packing, increasing the crystallinity degree and crystal size.

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In recent years, the garment and textile industries generate millions of tons of textile waste every year around the world. Textile wastes are one of the disposed of materials and the sum of disposed of material squander materials expanded from year to year. For this reason, regenerating and utilizing the textile waste item as resources and decreasing environmental pollution may be an extraordinary opportunity. This research is aimed at manufacturing unsaturated polyester composite reinforced with 100% cotton fabric waste for ceiling board application using a manual mixing process followed by the compression molding method. The statistical results showed that mechanical properties of the produced composite samples such as tensile, compressive, flexural, and impact strength are affected by fiber mixed ratio and matrix loading at α = 0.05 . The composite ceiling reinforced with 33 weight % cotton fabric waste and a matrix of 67 weight % unsaturated polyester had a maximum tensile strength of 198 MPa, the flexural strength of 30.1 MPa, and compressive strength of 1105.3 MPa. On the contrary, the false ceiling board made from 10% cotton fabric waste and matrix of 90% unsaturated polyester had a lower tensile strength of 112.6 MPa, flexural strength of 21.5 MPa, and compressive strength of 867.5 MPa. Generally, the manufactured composites’ mechanical behaviors were comparable to existing commercial ceiling boards and the output of this research work can protect the environmental pollution by reducing textile waste disposed to landfills.

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The textile industry is one of the most important sectors in Ethiopia and has grown from year to year. The extraction and processing of starch from different resources are one of the most important agro industries in the world. Starch is a product commonly used in textile industries as a sizing agent and is mainly sourced from food crops. Those food crops are mostly edible by human beings. Therefore, alternative starch sources of materials are required. This research focused on extracted starch from white lupine seed which is not edible. Two extraction methods are used namely cold and hot steeping. From those cold steeping is much better than hot to get a quality starch which is comparable with the existing starch in the market like maize, white, etc. starches. After applying the extracted whit lupine starch in textile sizing, the tensile strength of warp yarn was not a significant difference. After sizing using extracted white lupine starch which is a hot and cold steeping method the average tensile strength was 320.9 cN and 338.3cN respectively and the average elongation of yarn was 4.27 % and 4.21% respectively achieved. The size pick-up % warp yarn in the case of hot and cold steeping is 10.64 and 14.85 respectively was achieved.