This is a massive breakthrough that will benefit the entire planet. Great news!
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Interesting discovery! I'd bet oil and petrochemical companies would be all over funding and trying to commercialize this research, because it means we wouldn't need to fully "wean off plastics"...
The industry isn't only aiming for society to keep depending on plastic, they're planning for an increase in plastic production. That obviously mean an increase in plastic wastes.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/664906/plastics-production-volume-forecast-worldwide/
Let's have plastic producers demonstrate their product can be recycled cheaply at scale before selling it. And the logical next step is require all plastic sold to be at least 50% recycled to ensure recycling is commercially viable and actually done at scale.
We shouldn't be producing mountains of plastic waste then let society struggle for 40 years to find a way to recycle all of it (burning isn't recycling). It should be the other way around, producers should demonstrate recycling first and use recycled plastic in their production.
Sounds a bit too good to be true but who knows.