Friday, April 23, 2021
Newswise top research article for this week
Today I would like to provoke your curiosity with this week’s top article related to yesterday’s Earth Day.
What can we do about the enormous plastic problem when the average person in the U.S. generates about 100 kg of plastic waste per year, most of which goes straight to a landfill.
Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have a solution to this problem, it’s called PDK and it is a plastic that is infinitely recyclable.
But how expensive would it be to implement PDKs into large scale production? A team led by Corinne Scown, Brett Helms, Jay Keasling, and Kristin Persson found that PDK-based plastic could quickly become commercially competitive with conventional plastics, and the products will get less expensive and more sustainable as time goes on.
Scown explains, “once you’ve produced the PDK initially and you’ve got it in the system, the cost and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with continuing to recycle it back to monomers and make new products could be lower than, or at least on par with, many conventional polymers.”
You can check out our video of last week’s best articles on Newswise here.
Next week on Tuesday, April 27th, we will be hosting a live event with experts that will be presenting research about Keeping Carbon in the Sea, Keeping Plastics Out, and Keeping the Sea Level Down. If you would like to join us, message us and we will send you an invite.
I am Jessica Johnson from Newswise. Have a great day!
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