Chemists develop radical ways to make it easier, more profitable to recycle plastic

 

Colby Hilbert                                                                                                             2/9/22

Period D                                                                                     Chemistry Current Events

 

(https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220207135834.htm) Link to where I got my article

 

In the article, “Chemists develop radical way to make it easier, more profitable to recycle plastic” by Timothy J. Fazekas, Jill W. Alty, Eliza K. Neidhart, Austin S. Miller, Frank A. Leibfarth, Erik J. Alexanian. Chemists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have described their idea for making to break down standard plastic you normally find in water bottles, and shopping bags to a highly valued material that is stronger and longer lasting than its original state. The amount of Plastic we Americans  throw away and use on a constant basis is a number you would be flabbergasted by. From the article it states that, “The United States generates more plastic trash than any other country -- about 46.3 million tons of it -- or 287 pounds per person a year, according to a 2020 study.” This Plastic isn't made to biodegrade from Earth's natural causes; it stays around and does nothing for thousands of years till it Biodegates. The authors start off with some of the atomic nature of plastics and explain that the atoms that make up plastics are some of the hardest in nature. Frank Leibfarth from the University of North Carolina tells us that if we change the bonds between the carbon and hydrogen atoms we could make single use plastics more durable and stronger and be worth something more. The article ends by saying that if this process is taken beyond the developmental stages it could change the way we look at plastic. 

Authors Timothy J. Fazekas, Jill W. Alty, Eliza K. Neidhart, Austin S. Miller, Frank A. Leibfarth, Erik J. Alexanian who put this article together did a fantastic job by making their points evident, clear and easy to understand throughout the whole entire article. This made it much easier to enjoy the article and to learn something new. They also credited literal people who are in the field of chemistry which takes out any uncertainty on whether we can trust this information. However, while they are stating some of their information to get the point across, some of their pieces of evidence were not very clear for me and made me go back and reread a couple times.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this article considering all of the articles made about Americans using plastic, and how someone viewed it a different way then we all did. I chose this article because I have read a lot of Articles about how different methods could be used to treat the world from overuse of plastic, and Global warming and thought it would be interesting to see a different insight. This to me made me look into the future of what the plastic and recycling businesses could become.    

 

Cite:  

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Chemists develop radical ways to make it easier, more profitable to recycle plastic." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 February 2022. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220207135834.htm>.