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New IBM Technology to Transform Plastic Recycling

July 17, 2019

Via: Waste360

In 2015, plastics generation was 34.5 million tons in the U.S., which was 13.1 percent of municipal solid waste generation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, those commonly used in food packaging and polyester clothing, made up a good part of that number and were recycled at a rate of only 29.9 percent in 2015.

To transform plastic and increase recycling, San Francisco-based IBM has developed a new technology called VolCat, a catalytic chemical process that can turn PET into a renewable resource through a combination of chemicals, heat and pressure. Short for volatile catalyst, VolCat is a chemical recycling process discovered at IBM Research-Almaden that selectively digests PET, the plastic used in consumer goods labeled with the No. 1 recycling label in the U.S.

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