More Bad News For Oil & Gas: Plastic Recycling Targeted By University of Delaware

July 20th, 2020 by Tina Casey 

Just in time for Plastic Free July, earlier this month the US Department of Energy earmarked $11.6 million for a new high-impact R&D effort called the Center for Plastics Innovation. The taxpayer dollars will support new transformative plastic recycling technology, which would be a giant step up from good old fashioned shredding and melting. Group hug for taxpayers! If all goes according to plan, CPI’s work will lead to a high value, high efficiency plastic recycling stream that will undercut the use of virgin oil and gas in the chemical industry.

A Transformative Era For Plastic Recycling

There are some signs that legacy oil and gas giants are planning ahead for a transformative plastic recycling scenario. For example, last year Royal Dutch Shell announced a pyrolysis-based method that produces chemical building blocks for new products from old plastic.

The big question is, who will be the next global leader in the transformative plastic recycling era of tomorrow, and it appears that the Department of Energy is determined not to let grass grow under the feet of the USA.

The new Plastic Innovation Center will be based at the University of Delaware, which has a head start in the chemistry field thanks in part to a long running relationship with the firm DuPont.

That’s a good thing, because CPI has its work cut out for it.

“Worldwide, more than 350 million tons of plastics were produced in 2018 alone. Only 12% of this plastic waste is reused or recycled, according to an industry report. Current recycling strategies fall far short in recovering material that is as high in quality as the material you started with — a major hurdle the CPI will be working to overcome,” the University of Delaware explained in a press release last week.

See Full Article at Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/20/more-bad-news-for-oil-gas-plastic-recycling-targeted-by-university-of-delaware/