THE sheer variety of plastics we use creates a massive headache for recycling companies. Separating mountains of plastic waste into compatible types – from tough transparent cola bottles to soft, light polystyrene packaging – currently costs an uneconomic £125 per tonne. But a new recycling technique might end the need for this expensive sorting process.
When an assortment of different polymers is melted, the different components don’t mix and then they solidify into a material that contains all sorts of different types of plastic. This makes the material unstable and weak. “Different polymers don’t give a homogeneous mix – you just get…
