Matthew Jones is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
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Plastics are lightweight, yet durable, tough and long-lived, making them ideal for a plethora of applications and industries on which society depends. However, most plastics do not decompose readily, leading to environmental problems — such as the accumulation of waste plastics that have to go to landfill, and widespread contamination of the oceans. Moreover, mixtures of plastics, such as those found in collected waste, are hard to recycle.Writing inNature, Zhanget al.1report an innovative approach that converts a mixture of eight commonly used plastics to either their original chemical building blocks or other valuable compounds.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01715-7
Zhang, M.-Q.et al.Naturehttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09088-7 (2025).
Ellis, L. D.et al.Nature Catal.4, 539–556 (2021).
Qin, J.et al.Adv. Mater.37, 2418138 (2025).
The author declares no competing interests.
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