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 ...

Polyethylene plastics — in particular, the ubiquitous plastic bag that blights the landscape — are notoriously hard to recycle. They’re sturdy and difficult to break down, and if they’re recycled at ...

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 ...