What percentage is actually broken down into monomers? How much microplastic waste is left behind. Given the reliance on "ambient air" I imagine it's not 100%.
Regardless, I'm excited to hear about progress on solving the plastic waste crisis. It seems better than the current alternatives the article presents:
> "The U.S. is the number one plastic polluter per capita, and we only recycle 5% of those plastics," said Northwestern's Yosi Kratish, the study's co-corresponding author. "There is a dire need for better technologies that can process different types of plastic waste. Most of the technologies that we have today melt down plastic bottles and downcycle them into lower-quality products.
Wouldn't (fully) burning all single-use plastics effectively make them no more long-lived and problematic than burning crude oil at sea? I know that's a low bar, but it seems like at least you're getting two uses out of them at that point...
This is great but PET (symbol #1) is one of the few plastics that ARE recyclable. I wonder if any of these techniques can be used to solve the non-recyclable plastic problems
This is a realm where government regulations can really make a big difference. China banned single-use plastics. A lot of plastic use is really unnecessary.
there is also the possibility to recycle pet-bottles into food grade bottles again using just mechanical means, I know at least two European companies who provide such machines
This is cool! Can't wait to never hear about it again
A promising approach—especially if it proves as simple and low-cost at scale. It’s obviously not going to "disrupt" the plastics industry overnight, but it could offer a valuable local alternative, particularly in regions dealing with massive plastic waste imports. The real question is whether this kind of tech can evolve outside of patent lock-in and centralized exploitation models.
Well, they used a "simple, inexpensive catalyst" and then HEATED the plastic/catalyst mysture. Nowhere in the article it gives you an estimate of the final cost of the process.
I always thought the real problem with plastic is that the problem itself is a feature. If it were easy to breakdown it would be used much less. A "solution" might actually cause nasty problems we haven't encountered before. Or Gray Goo.
Break down into what? Is this also going to end up in my testicles?
Why don't we throw all our trash into a volcano?
I was expecting a much more complicated catalyst!
There is no such a thing like "plastic". The article is about PET - polyethylene terephthalate, there are hundreds other "plastics", which different chemical propensities. The problem is not actual act of recycling, but figuring out what a given piece is made of. PET is popular - 70% of all bottles are made of it, but there are those 30%, so the most expensive part - sorting - has to be carried anyway. Plus we target only bottles.
Recycling is a great example of the rule "Privatizing Profits and Socializing Losses". Business is packing their stuff in whatever they want and then citizens, authorities has to deal with the wastes business produced.
Why we can't force to use for bottles/packaging a single type of plastic? Why we can't force easily removable labels on the bottles (the glue that is used to stick half plastic/half paper labels is a deal breaker for simple recycling), I think only in Japan this is mandatory. Why we allow making packages (especially for take-away food from pseudo-paper (which is a paper with plastic coating), which is not recyclable at all and, in fact, is much worst than plastic, but business claims that "now we are eco, see, we use paper for packaging)?
Why we allow to use for packaging whatever business wants? Why the cost and effort of the recycling has to be on people and local governments?