Plastic Recycling Not Requiring Sorting Could Be Coming

The future of plastic recycling may soon get much less complicated, frustrating and tedious.

In a new study, Northwestern University chemists have introduced a new plastic upcycling process that can drastically reduce — or perhaps even fully bypass — the laborious chore of pre-sorting mixed plastic waste.

The process harnesses a new, inexpensive nickel-based catalyst that selectively breaks down polyolefin plastics consisting of polyethylenes and polypropylenes — the single-use kind that dominates nearly two-thirds of global plastic consumption. This means industrial users could apply the catalyst to large volumes of unsorted polyolefin waste.