Vehicle interior component formed from recyclable plastics material

A fully recyclable interior component for an automotive vehicle formed from a plurality of discrete layers of polyester based materials and integrated into a shaped interior component having a soft touch finishing sheet comprising:

• a. a first and rigid layer of a plurality of composite sheets formed from a thermoplastic polyester and glass fiber providing rigidity for said interior component,
• b. a second and resilient layer comprising a pad of differing fibers including first polyethylene terephthalate fibers to impart resiliency to said pad and second bicomponent polyethylene terephthalate fibers having a lower melting temperature than the first polyethylene terephthalate fibers to provide a thermoplastic bond for connecting the first and second layers of said interior component to one another, and
• c. a third outer finished layer of polyester fabric secured to the second layer comprising said pad by a thermoplastic bond provided by said bicomponent polyethylene terephthalate fibers of said second layer after said interior component is heated to a predetermined temperature and then cooled.

A fully recyclable headliner for an automotive vehicle formed from a plurality of discrete layers of polyester based materials and integrated into a shaped headliner component having a soft to touch finished surface comprising:

• a. a first layer of a plurality of composite sheets formed from a thermoplastic polyester and glass fiber providing rigidity for said headliner,
• b. a second layer comprising a pad of fibers including first polyethylene terephthalate fibers having a relatively high melting temperature to impart resiliency to said pad and second polyethylene terephthalate co-polymer fibers having a lower melting temperature than said first fibers to provide a thermoplastic bond for operably connecting said first and second layers, and
• c. and outer finishing layer of said headliner formed by a thin sheet of polyester fabric secured to the surface of said second layer by a thermoplastic bond created when the headliner is heated to a predetermined temperature sufficient to melt said polyethylene terephthalate co-polymer fibers and then cooled.