Chemists have developed a catalytic process that turns the largest component of today's plastic waste stream, polyolefin plastic bags and bottles, into gases -- propylene and isobutylene -- that are ...

A radical new process “vaporizes” plastic bags and bottles to help make recycled materials. American scientists say the innovative chemical procedure turns ubiquitous waste items into hydrocarbon ...

How Are Plastic Bottles Made? Plastics are made from oil or natural gas, which are made of molecules called hydrocarbons. When you heat hydrocarbons to very high temperatures, they break down into ...

Graduate student RJ Conk adjusts a reaction chamber in which mixed plastics are degraded into the reusable building blocks of new polymers. A new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics ...