I worked on a similar (but competing) technology to this one for a few years. Depolymerization is absolutely the way forward for most polymer recycling.
For most uses, manufacturers want plastic that’s colorless and has good physical properties. Melting down clear plastic can work, but it degrades the polymers in hard-to-control ways. And if there’s any pigment in the plastic, forget about it.
If you break down polymers into their constituent monomers, you’ve turned a polymer process into a chemical process. Polymers are hard to work with. Chemicals are, comparatively, pretty easy. You can do a step or two to extract all the color and impurities, then re-polymerize the cleaned up material and get plastic that’s indistinguishable from brand new.
If your depoly process is good, it can distinguish between different polymers, so you can recycle mixed waste streams. Ours was even pretty good at distinguishing nylon from PET, which I sorta doubt the zinc process will be. But hey, more competition in this space is gonna be good for the world.
I mean, you could also have clothing that’s a) not made from plastic and b) lasts longer.
But you know, capitalism.
Until then plastic that can’t recycled needs to be burned.
Whose fucking shiti idea was it to put it landfill?
Burning plastic sends the waste into the air where it joins the water cycle. The matter isn’t destroyed, it’s just atomized and spread out. Properly sealed landfills ostensibly contain the damage, although we should recognize that landfill regulations are lax at best.
We already burn oil. I positing burning would fix micro plastic issue.
This is also not my domain so I am talking out of my ass mostly to get a convo going so maybe somebody competent can provide proper context.
