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Chocolate [soylentnews.org] writes:

Have you ever wondered what happens when you put plastic in the recycling bin for collection? It probably goes straight into the garbage tip with the rest of the trash. Up to a short time ago countries like China offered a decent price for usable plastic but those deals have dried up leaving many countries will millions of tonnes of plastic and few solutions to deal with it. Now, Australian company Licella says it has created a system that can recycle all types of plastic [abc.net.au], even to the extent of creating oil that can be turned into bitumen, petrol or back into different kinds of plastics. The Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) patented by Len Humphreys and Sydney University professor Thomas Maschmeyer converts plastic materials back to their base state through a form of chemical recycling that changes the plastics at a molecular level using hot water at a high pressure to turn them back into oil.

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