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Plastic pyrolysis heats plastic waste in a sealed, oxygen-free reactor until the long polymer chains snap into smaller molecules. What comes out is oil, gas and a solid residue. With cleaning and upgrading, some of that oil can feed a petrochemical plant and end up in new plastic. The catch is in that last sentence.…
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Advanced recycling is the industry’s name for processes that go beyond shredding and remelting. They use heat, solvents, chemistry or enzymes to recover something useful from plastic that ordinary recycling can’t handle. Some of it runs at industrial scale. Some is stuck waiting for financing. And a few plants that were meant to prove the…
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For years, chemical recycling has been stuck in a stalemate. The plastics industry calls it the answer for waste that ordinary recycling can’t touch. Critics call it a shell game — too much energy in, too much material lost, and a lot of “recycled” plastic that actually ends up as fuel. Both sides had a…
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Mechanical recycling is how most recycled plastic is made today. Used plastic is collected, sorted, shredded, washed and melted into new raw material, without changing the plastic’s chemistry. Take an empty PET water bottle. It gets cleaned, chopped into flakes, melted and formed into pellets. A manufacturer then turns those pellets into a new bottle,…
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The world makes more than 430 million tonnes of plastic a year, actually recycles about 9% of its plastic waste, and still loses millions of tonnes to the environment. The longer version is where it gets confusing, because “plastic production,” “plastic waste,” “mismanaged waste” and “plastic pollution” are four different measurements, and reputable sources report…
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Plastic is rarely just plastic. Behind a water bottle, a cable or a food container there’s usually a recipe: a base polymer plus additives that make it flexible, tough, colorful or fire-resistant. Many of those ingredients are fine under normal use. A few carry real health concerns. And the label almost never tells you which…
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Key takeaways Chemicals have the stronger evidence. Some plastic-associated chemicals (certain bisphenols, phthalates, flame retardants, vinyl chloride) have documented hazards. Microplastics are real, but their health impact is unproven. Particles are found in food, water, air and human tissue. Evidence of harm is mostly experimental or associational. Heat, damage and reuse raise exposure. Use containers…
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Plastic bottles showing up on beaches are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ocean plastic pollution. There’s heaps more of the stuff lurking out of sight – like those abandoned fishing nets down at the bottom of the sea, or tiny plastic shreds in seawater. And then there’s the waste that…
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Nanoplastics are tiny bits of plastic. Many sources define them as less than 1 micrometre (µm), but there is no one size rule. Sun, wear, and weather can break big plastic into smaller bits. We know people and wildlife may meet these bits. But we do not yet know the health risk from daily exposure.…
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Plastic pollution does not disappear when a bottle, bag or piece of packaging breaks apart. In many cases, it simply becomes harder to see. That is where microplastics come in. These tiny plastic particles have now been found in oceans, rivers, sediments, soil, air, drinking water, food and human biological samples. Some begin life at…