A New Approach to Recycling Plastic?

Plastic is a wonderous material that has enabled an unfathomable number of advancements in modern society. Yet it is no secret that, without proper management, the plastic waste created is a cause for considerable concern.

There are always new advancements and processes being developed to help combat this, though they are usually similar in their approach.

However, a new study has taken place that takes a look at plastic recycling in a whole new light.

Taking Inspiration from Nature

The new study is taking an approach that has not widely been done before, demonstrating a proof-of-concept idea that centres around how organic polymers are naturally recycled within the environment.

Proteins are prevalent in all biological structures on earth. The organic compound is one of the major building blocks of life and is structured as long chains of molecules known as amino acids.

These molecules are constantly broken down into separate ‘beads’ and then reconfigured into different proteins, without losing any of the quality of the proteins.

The idea is to apply the same theory to plastic – a synthetic polymer.

However, the process, which researchers have called ‘nature-inspired circular-economy recycling’ (or NaCRe), is still very much in its infancy.

Lab tests have shown that they can divide organic proteins into amino acids and assemble them into new structures without losing quality.  proteins into amino acids and assemble them into new structures without losing quality.

The team state that this should be able to be applied to plastic as well, though on a much larger scale. A lot of time would be needed to get to the point where a viable process could be tested, due to the marked differences between synthetic and natural polymers.

However, if successful, this process would considerably increase the amount of time that materials could be kept in circulation.

Contact Rayda today to find out more about our 100% recyclable products.