The negative health influences of plastic on both wildlife and humans have been well-known. However, the material, which is used for everything from shopping bags to drink bottles to food packaging, is hard to avoid. What's worse, the small percentage of recycled plastic is of lower quality and can only be used a few times before it has to be thrown away.
Now, French company Carbios wants to help solve the problem with a plastic-eating enzyme (酶) that digests plastic and turns it into its chemical building blocks. The resulting material can be used to create anything and, more importantly, can be endlessly recycled.
"Traditional method of recycling plastic is limited," explains Carbios CEO Martin Stephan. "And you cannot recycle it infinitely (无限). After six or seven cycles of recycling, the plastic might only be good enough to use for item like clothing or carpets, and eventually, it will have to be discarded entirely. So it's not a solution for the end of life of plastics, while our solution is an infinite recycling solution."
The recycling process, which is currently in its pilot stage, will be tested on a larger scale in France. The company has already signed up several large customers, who are all eager to reduce their ecological (生态) footprint. "Our goal is to bring this technology on the market by 2024 at large industrial scale," said Stephan.
However, Stephan believes we can only win the battle if people make sure that plastic waste doesn't end up in the environment or in landfills. So next time you use a plastic bottle or container, be sure to make the extra effort to place it in a recycling bin.
