Chemical advances are increasing the proportion of polymer waste that can be recycled The environmental consequences of plastic solid waste are visible in the ever-increasing levels of global plastic pollution both on land and in the oceans. But although there are important economic and environmental incentives for plastics recycling, end-of-life treatment options for plastic solid waste are in practice quite limited. Presorting of plastics before recycling is costly and time-intensive, recycling requires large amounts of energy and often leads to low-quality polymers, and current technologies cannot be applied to many polymeric materials. Recent research points the way toward chemical recycling methods with lower energy requirements, compatibilization of mixed plastic wastes to avoid the need for sorting, and expanding recycling technologies to traditionally nonrecyclable polymers.

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塑料回收的未来

化学进步正在增加可回收聚合物废物的比例 塑料固体废物对环境的影响从陆地和海洋中全球塑料污染水平的不断增加中可见一斑。但是，尽管塑料回收具有重要的经济和环境激励措施，但塑料固体废物的报废处理方案在实践中非常有限。在回收之前对塑料进行预分类成本高昂且耗时，回收需要大量能源并且通常会导致聚合物质量低劣，而且目前的技术无法应用于许多聚合物材料。最近的研究指出了降低能源需求的化学回收方法，混合塑料废物的相容性以避免需要分类，