Scientists have come up with a new form of plastic which can be recycled back to a pristine state for resuse a huge number of times. This makes it a big contender to help stop the mountain of plastic trash we waste every day. The new material, PDK – which stands for polydiketoenamines – come with a penalty though. It’s very expensive to make. Something to do with one particular chemical component which costs a lot. However once PDK is created, it can be recycled using nothing more than some strong acid at room temperature. No need for any extreme temperature and energy consuming pyrolysis which is typically needed to break down normal plastic.

The plastic currently costs around 30 times conventional plastic to produce, although the cost of recycling is a fraction of normal processes. And chemically recycling PDK back to new, produces a tiny amount of emissions compared to alternatives.  You can find the scientific paper here.