1.0 Research BackgroundThe term plastic has attracted more attention in the literature over the past 100 years, since the introduction of the first industrial plastic in the late 19th century. John Wesley Hyatt, an American, finally found the solution in 1869 with celluloid which made its debut in the plastics industry (McCord, 1964). Since then, several milestones have been reached in the history of materials science, with the invention of plastic arguably touching more lives than any other technological advancement. Plastics play an important role in the environmental, societal and economic dimensions of sustainable development. Our modern way of life would not be possible without plastic. Plastics have proliferated so easily in the modern world because of their inherent properties such as light weight, versatility and durability (Fortelný et. al., 2004). By possessing these advantageous characteristics, plastics have become a good candidate for replacing other materials ranging from simple plastic parts such as household storage containers to sophisticated devices such as replacement heart valves. It is this range of properties, together with their low cost, that has allowed annual global demand for plastic to reach at least 308 million tonnes by 2010 (Andrady and Neal, 2009).1.1 Production impacts Although plastics have had a remarkable impact on our culture and way of life, the production and use of plastics poses a growing threat to the environment. Most plastics are made from fossil fuels and their production therefore impacts oil consumption, both as a raw material and as an energy source for the manufacturing process (van der Voet et al, 2003) . The process...... middle of paper ...... is the chapter. The literature review on the relevant topics has been presented in Chapter 2. The main objectives of this chapter are to present the latest knowledge and studies from other researchers relating to the feasibility of carrying out reprocessing operations in the industry plastic, especially in plastic recycling and the implementation of the Taguchi method to optimize injection molding processing parameters to improve the mechanical properties of recycled plastic products. The following Chapter 3 describes the methodology used in this research in which each procedure of the experiments is explained in detail. Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the results obtained from the experiments based on the Taguchi method and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Chapter 5 highlights the conclusion of this research work and ends with further future work..