It’s no secret that figuring out what to do with plastic after it has been used is complicated. Unlike other recyclable material, plastic typically has a petroleum base which means it is non-renewable. However, plastic can be reused by breaking it down and to it’s base level to be rebuilt into a new product. An example is the plastic found in automobiles.
All 40 kinds of plastics used in a North American automobile can be recycled, the need to separate and clean them makes using them more expensive than using virgin plastic resins. This translates into a higher proportion of plastics in the remnants of shredded end-of-life automobiles – a contaminated mixture of plastics and non-plastics that is usually disposed of through some combination of landfilling, incineration, and secondary recycling.
Read more about new promising ideas to make plastic a recyclable product
