Despite the planet’s growing plastic pollution crisis, petroleum-based polymers have become an integral part of modern life. They make cars and airplanes lighter and more energy efficient. They constitute a core material of modern medicine by helping to keep equipment sterile, deliver medicines and build prosthetics, among many other things. And they are a critical component of the wiring and hardware that underlies our technology-driven civilization.
The trouble is, when they outlive their usefulness, they become waste and end up polluting our oceans, rivers, soils and bodies.
But new research from a team of chemists at UC Berkeley suggests a glimmer of hope when it comes to the thorny problem of recycling plastics — one that may allow us to have our cake, and potentially take a very small bite, too.
