Recycling Plastic One Carbon at a Time?

A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ÜBerkeley Lab). and UC Berkeley have devised a new technique for recycling polyethylene plastic bags and food packaging into propylene or propene gas, a valuable starter material for commercial plastics and commodity chemicals. Recycling polyethylene plastic into new, recyclable plastics could help reduce carbon emissions linked to plastic pollution and landfill. "The world produces more than 200 billion pounds of polyethylene," said scientist John Hartwig, the senior author of the Science study reporting the new technique. "We depend on polyethylenes. They have great benefits for a huge range of applications from pipes and building materials to food preservation. The waste forms of these plastics could be a source of carbon, but these materials are very challenging to recycle.