BEIJING, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- From plastic water bottles along the River Thames in the UK to plastic wrappings after China’s "double 11" shopping spree, the problem of "white pollution" never stopped ballooning in recent years.

Thanks to a salt in liquid state "ionic liquids", Chinese researchers have developed a new recycle technology to break PET (polyester) plastics down into its most basic molecules, to remake the plastic wastes become its own perpetual raw material.

PET is the fourth-most-produced polymer in the world. It is widely used in daily life, like drinking bottles, carpet fibers, printable circuits and polyester fabrics.

Although reducing the use and improving waste systems can put a dent in the plastics entering the environment, the rate of production is tremendous compared to its degradability.

Most recycled plastics are simply broken into pellets that are then remolded to make new plastic products of lesser quality.

The pollution caused by some traditional recycle methods is high while the efficiency is low, said Lu Xingmei, senior plastics recycling professor of Institute of Process Engineering Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Ionic liquids have ions refusing to stack neatly into crystals like table salt, which makes it exist as liquid. It stands out in the green chemistry movement because they rarely evaporate, so cannot be inhaled and do not form smog.

Using ionic liquids as catalyst, Lu and her team split the long polymer chains of PET plastics into its constituents, increasing the final degradability to 100 percent in lab and reducing the use of fresh water in the recycling process by more than 75 percent.

The Chinese researchers are currently discussing with British company Green Lizard Technologies, planning to build a 10,000-ton scale PET plastic recycle facility in Britain.

For Zhang Suojiang, academician of Chinese Academy of science, director of Ionic Liquids and Green Engineering center and director of Institute of Process Engineering, commercializing the new recycling technology can make more people see the promising future of circular economy.

Dismantling plastics to their chemical parts provide building blocks to remake polymers, and recycled plastic products made from these are of equally high quality. Theoretically, it may lead to an infinite recycle someday, said Zhang.

So far, it's still cheaper to burn plastic wastes and or to throw them away in landfills. The Chinese researchers said they plan to make their new chemical recycling technology more economical in future studies. (Xinhua)