Over 20M tons of used PET bottles were collected in 2008. To keep them from contributing to the ever-growing mountain of plastic trash, they are recycled as much as possible. A new method developed by IBM and Stanford University (USA) may be considerably be able to improve this challenge, thanks to a new catalyzer. Typically, PET material is first washed, then ground and finally melted down. Since the plastic molecules are damaged in the process, up to 70% of brand-new PET must be added in order to produce reusable granulate. However, only the quality of granulate made from transparent PET is good enough to be turned into PET beverage bottles again - coloured recycled PET is only usable for textile fibers and other more basic applications. Through computer simulations, scientist have been able to experimentally prove the high activity they had hoped for and are now testing the new method on a larger scale in cooperation with scientists from the King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology in Saudi Arabia.
