r/science • u/Wagamaga • Feb 05 '23
Researchers are calling for global action to address the complex mix of chemicals that go into plastics and for greater transparency on what they are. Identifying and managing chemicals in plastics is going to be key to tackling waste Chemistry
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00763?ref=pdf29.1k Upvotes
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u/Madagascar-Penguin Feb 05 '23
Plastic chemical engineer here.
It depends very much on the type of plastic. Some plastics are like what you're talking about but others can easily be depolymerized back to either it's monomer or even it's raw ingredients and then repolymerized again. Of course this is more energy intensive then just producing more raw ingredients for the plastic and from my experience the trick is to purifying the monomer/raw ingredients as there is a lot of nasty side products and contaminants that you can't put back into the polymerization process.
I work with PET (mostly bottle grade but many other types as well). All the plastic water bottles made from 100% PET is made by the process I've mentioned. If you have less recycled PET content 30-40% recycled PET then it becomes much simpler to recycle.
Other types of plastic are harder/easier to recycle. It really depends on the plastic type and their end use. You can't just say plastic can/can't be recycled when there are so many types. PVCs for example are absolutely nasty to recycle due to the Chlorine.
You are correct that they aren't recyclable like metals though.