Scientists just turned plastic bottles and bags into liquid

Scientists have come up with a new way to turn plastic waste into liquid fuel. It uses less energy than previous methods, and produces a higher quality end product.

The technique breaks down polyethylene - the most abundant plastic in the world, used to make everything from plastic film and food packaging, to water bottles and shopping bags. Around 100 million tonnes of the stuff is produced every year. 

A viable solution to our plastic problem couldn’t come soon enough. We’ve been piling it up in landfills that kill people, burying it underground, and letting itaccumulate in the oceans to form giant floating trash islands. 

Yep, our global response to plastic waste is pretty much the equivalent of shoving everything under the bed and hoping it will magically stop being a problem, but by 2050, it’s estimated that there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans.

As Fiona MacDonald reported for us earlier this year, 95 percent of plastic is thrown out after being used just once, and 8 million tonnes of plastic - or one garbage truck-full every minute - ends up in our oceans each year.

"If no action is taken, this is expected to increase to two [truck-fulls] per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050," a World Economic Forum (WEF) reportrevealed in January. "In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish."

But you don’t need me to tell you that the situation is dire. We’ve seen this building for decades. 

The solution is fairly simple - we need to turn plastic waste into a commodity that people can actually use, and given all the hydrogen and carbon that makes up polyethylene, liquid hydrocarbon fuel is the obvious choice.