University of Copenhagen:

Chemists at the University of Copenhagen have developed a method to convert plastic waste into a climate solution for efficient and sustainable CO₂ capture. This is killing two birds with one stone as they address two of the world’s biggest challenges: plastic pollution and the climate crisis.

The work is published in the journal Science Advances.

As CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere keep rising regardless of years of political intentions to limit emissions, the world’s oceans are drowning in plastics, which threatens marine environments and ecosystems.

The key global problems are often interconnected, and typically, the solution to one problem creates another one while the clock keeps ticking. But what if we could solve several problems at the same time?

It’s almost too good to be true, but a new cutting-edge invention promises to do just that. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have developed a method where one man’s trash really does become another man’s “treasure,” when decomposed PET plastic becomes the main ingredient in efficient and sustainable CO₂ capture. [Continue reading…]