Plastic scintillators can be easily fabricated at a low cost and applied to nuclear and high-energy physics. In this study, we fabricated 2 $\times$ 2 $\times$ 0.1 cm$^3$ and 2 $\times$ 2 $\times$ 1.2 cm$^3$ samples from a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle and checked the possibility of using them as plastic scintillators. We obtained an emission peak similar to that of BC-400, a commercially-available plastic scintillator. We used $^{207}$Bi ($\gamma$–rays), $^{90}$Sr ($\beta$-ray) and $^{241}$Am ($\alpha$-particle) radioactive sources for excitation of the samples. The portable radiation detector based on a recyclable plastic scintillator was tested by using a homemade counterboard. From the obtained results, such as the emission spectrum and the pulse height spectra, we expect this plastic scintillator to be used on a portable detector for different excitation sources.

Keywords: PET, Plastic, Scintillator, Luminescence properties, Energy spectrum, Counter board