Proper utilization of the available natural resources and wastes became crucial for developing sustainability in industry. In this work, the feasibility of using the date palm fibers in the natural fiber reinforced polymer composites (NFC) for automotive industry was reported. Moreover, this work identifies a gap in the way of evaluating NFC relative to comprehensive desired criteria. This gap leads to disregard potential natural fiber types in industrial applications and keep it no more than an environmental waste problem. Here, criteria that affect the NFC were categorized and classified into levels. Governing criteria were suggested, collected and tabulated according to each level. To ensure the potential and competitiveness of the date palm fiber (DPF) in developing sustainability of the automotive industry, several comparisons between DPF and other fiber types commonly used in this industry were carried out. In most comparisons, DPF was the best selected fiber among all other types. DPF was the best regarding specific Young's modulus to cost ratio criterion. Technical properties and performance, environmental, economical, and societal aspects strongly contribute toward adopting DPF into the automotive sector to improve its sustainability and productivity. Furthermore, this adoption has a significant environmental influence throughout achieving an efficient sustainable waste management practice.

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A study on mechanical properties of soil buried kenaf fibre reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composites is presented in this paper. Kenaf bast fibre reinforced TPU composites were prepared via melt-mixing method using Haake Polydrive R600 internal mixer. The composites with 30% fibre loading were prepared based on some important parameters; i.e. 190 °C for reaction temperature, 11 min for reaction time and 400 rpm for rotating speed. The composites were subjected to soil burial tests where the purpose of these tests was to study the effect of moisture absorption on the mechanical properties of the composites. Tensile and flexural properties of the composites were determined before and after the soil burial tests for 20, 40, 60 and 80 days. The percentages of both moisture uptake and weight gain after soil burial tests were recorded. Tensile strength of kenaf fibre reinforced TPU composite dropped to ∼16.14 MPa after 80 days of soil burial test. It was also observed that there was no significant change in flexural properties of soil buried kenaf fibre reinforced TPU composite specimens.