In this ideal scenario, plastic waste is repurposed into monomers that can be re-polymerized to form new plastics. This reduces the need for new plastics derived from petroleum, ...

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) dominate due to their widespread use, facilitating collection and sorting at recycling facilities. More than half of total waste ...

Genetically engineered bacteria have been created that can convert polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the polymer plastic ...

Plastics play a fundamental role in modern life, but their resistance to biodegradation makes them very difficult to dispose ...

To make randomized polyethylene glycol (rPEG), the researchers used a conventional reaction for synthesizing PEG but incorporated a second monomer, which added randomly distributed branches to the ...

New process converts PET plastic into monomer building blocks, ... In experiments, method recovered 94% of monomers from PET in just four hours, without harmful byproducts. Advanced Search.

Researchers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, have developed a groundbreaking chemical process that can transform the most prevalent forms of plastic waste into reusable hydrocarbon ...

Much of the U.S. uses single-stream recycling, where plastic, glass and paper go into one bin. Here’s what happens to that material and ways engineering is trying to improve the process ...

Lignin and polyethylene have chemical properties in common. When the fungi used their lignin-degrading enzymes without actual lignin, they evidently had no problem switching to plastic.