More sustainable recycling of plastics

Plastics belong to the most widely used materials, and they are vital components of all modern technologies. So far, it has been possible to recycle these valuable materials only to a limited extent. In order to offer novel solutions, chemists developed a more sustainable method for chemically recycling polyethylene-like plastics. The researchers use ‘breaking-points’ on a molecular level to disassemble the plastic back to its molecular components.