Plastics are massively engineered to be most suitable for very specific needs. Whilst this means they are great for solving materials problems, when it comes to recycling them, we end up with mixtures of many different plastic materials. This becomes an issue as melting down mixed plastics often produces materials that do not mix correctly or with poor structural properties.

In this episode, Dr. Ryan Clarke talked about his research into improving mixed recycling methods by using cross linkers that allow mixtures of plastic monomers to effectively polymerise into useful materials.