Research · April 21, 2026
Plastics Engineering Lab Runs a Pilot Line for Recycled-Content Automotive Parts
A small production line lets students and a manufacturing partner test how much recycled polymer a structural part can tolerate.
The plastics engineering program has commissioned a pilot injection-molding line dedicated to studying recycled-content parts. Working with a regional automotive supplier, students are systematically increasing the fraction of recycled polymer in a real bracket design and testing each batch for strength, dimensional stability, and behavior over temperature.
The question the partner wants answered is practical: how much recycled material can go into a load-bearing part before performance drops below spec, and which recycled feedstocks are consistent enough to rely on. The pilot line is small enough for students to run end to end and instrumented to capture process data on every shot.
“The industry wants to use more recycled material and is genuinely unsure where the cliff is. That uncertainty is a good undergraduate research problem.”
— plastics engineering faculty lead
Results are shared with the partner and published in aggregate. Six students are paid on the project through the supplier’s sponsorship.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
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