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A comment on Just 10% of U.S. plastic gets recycled. A new kind of plastic could change that. Parent comment

Re:Just 10% of U.S. plastic gets recycled. A new kind of pla... by pitaj on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @11:13AM (#19729413)
Aluminum makes sense to recycle for many reasons:

- Extracting aluminum from ore is very expensive

- That makes recycled aluminum cheaper than fresh aluminum

- Aluminum is a metal, you can melt it down to burn off or separate any impurities

None is those is true of plastic.

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Re:Just 10% of U.S. plastic gets recycled. A new kind of pla... by rpedela on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @12:17PM (#19730045)
The article said that this new research makes plastic recycling like aluminum recycling in that it can separate impurities. I don't see any reason why recycled plastic wouldn't be at least price competitive with virgin plastic if this technology works at scale.
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