A MILLION plastic bottles are sold every minute. Many are not recycled and of those that are, only a small fraction become bottles again. That is, in part, because recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the polymer used to make such bottles, back into material robust enough to hold, say, a fizzy drink, is hard.

A MILLION plastic bottles are sold every minute. Many are not recycled and of those that are, only a small fraction become bottles again. That is, in part, because recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the polymer used to make such bottles, back into material robust enough to hold, say, a fizzy drink, is hard.