We generate staggering quantities of plastic and plastic-containing products each year, but only a tiny fraction of that plastic can be recovered and used to manufacture products of similar quality. That’s because most products, from food-packaging films and single-use bags to sneakers and electronics, are made from mixtures of different plastics, and once they are mixed, those plastics can’t be recovered and used to make new bags or sneakers. Instead, most of it ends up in landfills, incinerators, or oceans.
A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are tackling the mixed-plastic challenge using a custom-designed material called polydiketoenamine (PDK), a new type of plastic they developed to be recycled efficiently and indefinitely, providing a low-carbon manufacturing solution for plastic products that never have to end up in a landfill.
