TiO2 nanotubes demonstrated to be a versatile nanostructure for biomaterials, clean energy and water remediation applications. However, the cost of titanium and the poor mechanical properties of the nano tubes hinder their adoption at large scale. This work presents a straightforward and scalable method for transferring photoactive anodic TiO2 nanotubes from titanium foils to commodity thermoplastic polymers, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polycarbonate, and polymethylmetacrylate, allowing the reusing of the remaining titanium. The obtained flexible nanocomposites reach a maximum photonic efficiencies of 0.038% (ISO-10678:2010) representing the 93% of photonic efficiency of TiO2 nanotubes on titanium. In addition, the nanocomposites and TiO2 nanotubes on titanium present similar antibacterial properties under 1 mW cm(-2) UV-A, 60% of Escherichia coil survival after 1 h of exposition. The final objective of this work is to point out main concepts and key parameters for a low-cost fabrication of a photoactive nanocomposite material. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.