Recovering valuable chemical building blocks from polystyrene waste

Polystyrene, the main material in plastic tableware and insulating materials, is a widely used polymer but is currently difficult to recycle. Reporting in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a team of U.S. researchers has now developed a thermochemical approach, making it possible to recover valuable chemicals from polystyrene waste in a simple two-step process. This new approach could enable the recycling of insulating and packaging materials for a truly circular plastics economy.