US scientists said Thursday they have made progress toward a kind of plastic that can be recycled "infinitely," and that it appears durable enough to compete with regular plastics.
Unlike plastics made from petroleum products, the new kind can be converted back to its original small-molecule state, and remade into new plastics over and over, said the report in the journal Science.
"The polymers can be chemically recycled and reused, in principle, infinitely," said lead author Eugene Chen, professor in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado State University.
Chen cautioned that the research has been done in the lab only, and more work is needed to bring it to scale.
However, the team has built on an advance it announced in 2015, which resulted in a fully recyclable plastic that was softer than many would have liked.
Making the old version required extremely cold conditions, and the end product had low heat resistance.
The new product fixes all these issues, researchers said.
An accompanying commentary in Science called the work "an important step" toward addressing the planet's plastic problem.
Under the new process, "plastic waste is depolymerized back to the starting material and then repolymerized to yield virgin-like plastics," said the commentary.
This kind of advance "can lead to a world in which plastics at the end of their life are not considered as waste but as raw materials to generate high-value products."
Currently, only about five percent of plastic is recycled.
Global production of plastic is expected to exceed 500 million metric tons by 2050.
Experts predict that by mid-century, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
UK corporate giants sign pact to cut plastic waste
London (AFP) April 26, 2018 –
More than 40 British companies including major retailers and soft drinks companies on Thursday pledged to eliminate unneccessary plastic packaging as part of an anti-pollution push.
The 42 firms, responsible for 80 percent of plastic packaging sold in Britain, have signed up to a pact that aims to tackle plastic pollution over the next seven years through a series of measures.
These include cutting down on single-use plastic packaging, making all plastic packaging reusable or recyclable and stipulating that 30 percent of all plastic packaging include recycled material.
Corporate giants such as Coca-Cola, Asda, Procter & Gamble and Marks & Spencer have all signed up the "UK Plastics Pact" amid growing concern over the problem of plastic pollution, particularly in the oceans.
"This requires a whole-scale transformation of the plastics system and can only be achieved by bringing together all links in the chain under a shared commitment to act," said Marcus Gover, head of the sustainability campaign group WRAP, which is leading the project.
"That is what makes the UK Plastics Pact unique. It unites every body, business and organisation with a will to act on plastic pollution. We will never have a better time to act, and together we can."
The group hopes that the pact will spread globally.
Britain announced last week that it plans to ban the sale of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds in England, as part of a push to tackle global marine pollution.
Prime Minister Theresa May said her government will launch a consultation on banning the single-use items later this year, ahead of legislation on the issue.
"The UK government is a world leader on this issue, and the British public have shown passion and energy embracing our plastic bag charge and microbead ban," May said at the time.
