Most of the 150 million tons of plastics produced around the world every year end up in landfills, the oceans and elsewhere. Less than 9 percent of plastics are recycled in the United States, rising to about 30 percent in Europe.
Most of the 150 million tons of plastics produced around the world every year end up in landfills, the oceans and elsewhere. Less than 9 percent of plastics are recycled in the United States, rising to about 30 percent in Europe.
That’s a $176 billion problem, the potential energy savings scientists say could be achieved from recycling all global plastic solid waste. But new approaches can increase the amount of plastic waste that can be successfully recycled, researchers from the University of Houston and IBM report in a perspective published this week in Science.
That means developing new plastics that are more easily recycled, along with finding ways to more efficiently recycle existing plastics. These approaches can range from methods to recycle different types of plastics together in one waste stream, avoiding a costly and time-consuming sorting process, as well as methods to break down plastics in a more energy-efficient manner.
“Recent research points the way toward chemical recycling methods with lower energy requirements, compatibilization of mixed plastic wastes to avoid the need for sorting, and expanding recycling technologies to traditionally nonrecyclable polymers,” wrote the article authors, Megan L. Robertson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UH, and Jeannette M. Garcia, a polymer chemist at the IBM Almaden Research Center.
Read more at University of Houston
Image: Megan Robertson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Houston, develops biorenewable components for plastics, replacing hydrocarbon-based polymers with those made from vegetable oils or other plant-based materials. (Credit: University of Houston)
