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What does this mean for PET already in landfills? Can we trawl through our landfills for old PET and bring it back to (perpetual) life with this process?
by DavidPiper 6y ago
What does this mean for PET already in landfills?
Can we trawl through our landfills for old PET and bring it back to (perpetual) life with this process?
- mediaman 6y agoIt would not make economic sense. You'd spend far more money and CO2 output moving mountains of garbage and trying to sort than would ever be recovered by recycling some scraps of plastic. The supply chain of incoming recyclable material is very important to make any recycling process work well. But yes, it would be possible.
- tandr 6y agoWould spraying garbage or landfill with bacteria that could produce this enzyme work? At least at slowly reducing volumes of plastic in landfills into liquid-y form?
- jussij 6y agoA better place to start would be the Great Pacific garbage patch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch#Size_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch#Si... That's an above ground source for trillions of pieces of plastic.
- nikanj 6y ago"Most debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the surface, evading detection by aircraft or satellite." Collecting that is going to be a massive headache.