Plastic recycling works best when waste is clean, sorted and made from a single polymer. Mixed packaging, films and contaminated plastics are much harder to process and often end up being incinerated or sent to landfill. In 2023, a British company began experimenting with a different approach at Teesside, using water at extremely high temperatures and pressures to break down difficult plastic waste into hydrocarbons that could be used again in manufacturing.
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