Eastman Chemical
OEM : Chemical
For 100 years, Eastman has created innovative products and solutions that touch people’s lives every day. Join us this year as we celebrate the legacy of the dedicated people who have turned great ideas into materials that enhance the quality of life in material way. For Eastman, it is about Innovation. Then. Now. Next.
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How Eastman Strives for a Circular Plastics Economy
“Mechanical recycling—where you go out and take items like single-use bottles, chop, wash and re-meld them and put them back into textiles or bottles—can only really address a small portion of the plastics that are out there,” Crawford said. After a few cycles, the polymers in the products degrade and the process is no longer possible.
Instead, Eastman uses advanced, also known as molecular or chemical, recycling. “We unzip the plastic back to its basic building blocks, then purify those building blocks to create new materials,” Crawford said. This “creates an infinite loop because that polymer can go through that process time and time again.”