Mixed or hard-to-recycle plastics could be turned into fuel by heating them in an oxygen-free chamber. However, the process—called “pyrolysis”— can only handle certain kinds of plastic and several of the tests are struggling to operate at commercial scale.
Scientists at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center and Washington University have devised a smoother production process to turn waste carbon dioxide—CO2—into biodegradable plastics.
The world is literally swimming in plastics, with an estimated 5.25 trillion bits of it in our seas and about 46,000 pieces per square mile of ocean, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.