A polymer can aid recycling plastic

Every year, millions of tons of plastic and other wastes end up in landfills around the globe. This is all very disconcerting given the fact that as population increases and waste matter burgeons, environmental degradation gets hastened. Now researchers in Holland are working on a new polymer that will be of use in creating recyclable products like electrical insulation, computer circuitry as well as hosts of other electronic products.
If you look at traditional or conventional electronic products, you will find that most of these are mode of thermo set plastics. These are plastics that have a great deal of heat resistance and also durability. These materials are quite hard too. The problem mostly occurs because these plastics have special additives and compounds that make the plastic so hard that it is impossible to recycle them. This is one of the main reasons why these plastic products have to end up in the landfills with effects that are severely damaging to the environment. In some cases these could also be burnt in incinerators leading to the preponderance of greenhouse gases,
New developments in the field of plastic technology now ensure that the plastic may be thermosetting in nature, but it is amenable to melting and easy remodeling. This is what has the potential to give a huge and long awaited flip to plastic recycling efforts. The new technology involves the creation of what are known as ‘self healing’ polymers which can be easily heated, and melted to form plastic bars that are uniform in shape and strong in constitution.
The new technology lends hope for a new generation of plastics that can be recycled quite easily. This would actually prevent addition to landfills and as and when commercially viable production of such polymers occurs, you can expect large scale use of such polymers in making truly recyclable electronic goods