The current global materials economy has long been inefficient due to unproductive reuse and recycling efforts. Within the wider materials portfolio, plastics have been revolutionary to many industries but they have been treated as disposable commodities leading to their increasing accumulation in the environment as waste. The field of chemistry has had significant bearing in ushering in the current plastics industry and will undoubtedly have a hand in transforming it to become more sustainable. Existing approaches include the development of synthetic biodegradable plastics and turning to renewable raw materials in order to produce plastics similar to our current petrol-based materials or to create new polymers. Additionally, chemists are confronting the environmental crisis by developing alternative recycling methods to deal with the legacy of plastic waste. Important emergent technologies, such as catalytic chemical recycling or upcycling, have the potential to alleviate numerous issues related to our current and future refuse and, in doing so, help pivot our materials economy from linearity to circularity.

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高分子科学100周年观点：走向废（及未来）塑料的催化化学回收

由于非生产性的再利用和回收工作，当前的全球材料经济长期以来一直效率低下。在更广泛的材料组合中，塑料对许多行业来说是革命性的，但它们被视为一次性商品，导致它们在环境中作为废物越来越多地积累。化学领域在引领当前塑料行业方面发挥了重要作用，无疑将有助于将其转变为更具可持续性。现有方法包括开发合成可生物降解塑料和转向可再生原材料，以生产类似于我们目前的石油基材料的塑料或创造新的聚合物。此外，化学家们正在通过开发替代回收方法来处理遗留的塑料废物来应对环境危机。重要的新兴技术，如催化化学回收或升级再造，有可能缓解与我们当前和未来垃圾相关的许多问题，并帮助我们的材料经济从线性转向循环。