Scientists develop new way of recycling plant-based plastics

A team of scientists at the University of Bath have developed a new way to break down plant-based plastics into their original building blocks, potentially allowing products to be recycled repeatedly without a loss in the quality of plastic.

The method uses lower temperatures and more environmentally-friendly catalysts than previous methods.

Professor Matthew Jones, from the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath, said: “Mechanical recycling reduces the quality of plastics and limits the range of products in which it can be used.”

“Our method of chemical recycling overcomes this problem by breaking down plastic polymers into their chemical building blocks, so they can be used over and over again to make virgin plastic without losing any properties.”

The researchers recycled PLA, and have also started trialling a similar process for recycling PET.

Dr Paul McKeown, from the University of Bath, said: “PLA is being increasingly used as a sustainable alternative for single-use plastics. Whilst its biodegradable under industrial conditions, it doesn’t biodegrade with home composting, and isn’t currently recyclable, so at the moment it commonly ends up contributing to the tonnes of plastic waste in landfill and oceans.”

“There is no single solution to the problem of plastic waste, the approach has to be a combination of reducing, reusing, and recycling. Our method of chemical recycling could allow carbon to be recycling indefinitely, created a circular economy rather than digging more up from the ground in the form of fossil fuels, or releasing it into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.”