From Cosmos magazine (23/9/2023), some news on developments in recycling mixed plastics…
New recycling technology deconstructs mixed plastic
A team of US chemists has found a way to convert unrecyclable mixtures of plastic into useful chemicals.
Mixed materials usually end up in landfill because they are very difficult to recycle. A shirt made from 40% polyester and 60% cotton, for instance, has plastic and cotton fibres wound very tightly together. The fibres must be laboriously unwound, or taken through a number of energy-intensive chemical reactions before the plastic and cotton can be separated and used again.
But now the researchers have developed a that can efficiently disassemble the polymers that make plastics, but leave other things in the mixture intact.