Why can’t we recycle plastic by simply melting and remolding it, like we do with metal?
In: Chemistry
Metals are elements, when we use them, we use them in elemental form or in relatively simple, low-energy molecules. Plastics are polymers, large, complicated, high-energy molecules with many bonds. Those bonds want to break to create lower energy bonds. When plastic is heated, those large molecules start to break apart in places and the plastic “degrades,” losing the properties that we want in the plastic. When the recycle it, plastic becomes less useful, and if you do it multiple times, it becomes unusable.
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