Ultra‐Low‐Cost Upcycling of Chewing Gum Packaging Waste Into All‐Waste Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Intelligent Motion Sensing and HMI

ABSTRACT Traditional recycling of aluminum‐plastic laminates (APLs) remains challenging because their tightly bonded heterogeneous layers create major technical and economic barriers. Although triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) offer a promising route for high‐value waste utilization, most reported devices still rely on commercial electrodes or substrates, limiting the feasibility of closed‐loop recycling. Herein, chewing gum packaging waste is directly converted into a TENG system by exploiting its intrinsic multilayer structure. Instead of separating the APLs, the inseparable laminates are employed as self‐supporting flexible electrodes, transforming a structural recycling disadvantage into a manufacturing advantage and forming a fully waste‐derived functional body without additional commercial core components. The energy‐harvesting unit (E‐TENG) delivers a peak power density of 73 mW m −2 without commercial metal foils or synthetic substrates, stably powering distributed Internet of Things (IoT) electronics. The sensing unit (S‐TENG) exhibits a sensitivity of 0.19 V N −1 over a broad 20–300 N detection range. Coupled with a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm, the S‐TENG achieves 99.01% recognition accuracy for diverse human gaits and enables wireless human–machine interaction (HMI) for robotic vehicle control. This work presents an ultra‐low‐cost laboratory‐scale demonstration for upcycling complex heterogeneous multilayer packaging into sustainable self‐powered IoT electronics.