Chemical recycling

Humans generate a lot of plastic waste – more than 400 million metric tons a year. To bring this fact a bit closer to home, the U.S. produced an average of 0.75 pounds (0.34 kilograms) of plastic waste per person each day in 2010, which is equivalent in weight to an unopened can of soda. Plastic products have been propelling our quality of life forward for over a century, from keeping food fresh longer to enhancing medical hygiene and making transportation more energy-efficient. In the meantime, plastic waste has also accumulated. Today it is an unsolved and growing problem of gargantuan proportions. Worldwide, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled – largely through mechanical processing, creating products like drainage pipes – and 19% is incinerated. The rest is either buried in landfills or has escaped into the environment, where it damages ecosystems and harms human health. To address existing and future plastic waste, new approaches beyond mechanical rec...

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea A new plant-based substitute for polyurethane foam eliminates the health risk of the material, commonly found in insulation, car seats and other types of cushioning, and it’s more environmentally sustainable, our new research shows. Polyurethane foams are all around you, anywhere a lightweight material is needed for cushioning or structural support. But they’re typically made using chemicals that are suspected carcinogens. Polyurethanes are typically produced in a very fast reaction between two chemicals made by the petrochemical industry: polyols and isocyanates. While much work has gone into finding replacements for the polyol component of polyurethane foams, the isocyanate component has largely remained, despite its consequences for human health. Bio-based foams can avoid that component. These bio-based foams avoid the need for petroleum pro...