1 November, 2019 – Here’s what to do with all that waste plastic, the scrap, waste and flotsam: turn it back into brand-new plastic and use it again, and again.

Swedish scientists say they have found a way to recycle plastic perfectly: their new process can turn any waste plastic back into new plastic of identical quality – and recover all of it.

The process can convert thrown-away plastic bottles, cups, bags, buckets and other detritus into a gas and, from that, fashion new materials. That is, complete recycling would be possible from existing, no-longer-wanted materials rather than petrochemical feedstock.

In 2015, the world generated more than 320 million tonnes of polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene and other polymers. Perhaps 200 million tonnes was neither incinerated nor recycled. As much as 12 million tonnes may have escaped into the oceans. No more than 14% was collected for recovery. Only 2% could be converted to a high-quality product, and 8% became plastic of lower quality. Around 4% was lost altogether.

“We should not forget that plastic is a fantastic material – it gives us products that we could otherwise only dream of. The problem is that it is manufactured at such low cost that it has been cheaper to produce new plastics from oil and fossil gas than reusing plastic waste,” said Henrik Thunman of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, who with colleagues developed a way of “cracking” plastic with steam.

“Through finding the right temperature – which is around 850°C – and the right heating rate and residence time, we have been able to demonstrate the proposed method at a scale where we can turn 200kg of plastic waste an hour into a useful gas mixture. This can then be recycled at the molecular level to become new plastic materials of virgin quality.”

“Circular use would help give used plastics a true value, and thus an economic impetus for collecting it anywhere on Earth”

Read more from the Source: Waste plastic can find a useful new life | Climate News Network