Last Blog - Fully Recyclable Plastics

As much as plastic recycling is advertised, very few kinds are actually recyclable. For example, the most reusable plastic can only be recycled 20-30%. However, now a team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California are saying that they have discovered a new kind of plastic polymer called polydiketoenamine, or PDK that could make plastic products 100% recyclable.
This article really interested me because my challenge project in IHSS focuses on the issue with single-use plastics and their environmental impact. My proposed solution was to simply refrain from using plastic items and instead using alternatives such as cloth bags and paper straws and it definitely did not even cross my mind that a solution could be to redesign the molecular build of plastics to make them more environmentally friendly. I think that if they can make this solution a reality then it would have a significant positive environmental impact. Plastic without a doubt is a super convenient material because of its flexibility in shape, size, colors and purposes so it would be really amazing if they could come up with a material that still has all of these characteristics but that is also environmentally.
In a way, this article connects to what we learned during our IHSS unit on government economics because the plastic pollution costs the government an estimated annual loss of $500–$2500 billion in the value of benefits derived from marine ecosystem services that could be alleviated if there was more action against single-use plastics.

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