A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a new solvent-based technique for removing stubborn pigments from recycled multilayer plastic packaging. The advance makes recycled plastic more commercially appealing—increasing its market value and moving the industry closer to “closing the loop” for recycled plastic.
The research, published in the March 14, 2025, issue of Science Advances, was led by postdoctoral fellow Tianwei Yan and PhD student Charles Granger, who work in the lab of George Huber, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at UW-Madison.
Plastic pollution is a major environmental and sustainability issue, with millions of tons of plastic produced from petroleum products entering landfills, waterways and oceans each year. Despite decades of research, plastic recycling is still very limited; only about 9% of plastic is recycled globally, with much of it downcycled into less valuable products.
Read the full story here: https://engineering.wisc.edu/news/mellow-the-yellow-new-techniques-clarify-recycled-plastic-increasing-their-value/