By Faith Gonia
The fork from your takeout dinner, the Ziploc bag that holds your sandwich, the clear cup containing your iced drink—single-use plastic has infiltrated the lives of everyday consumers. Deceptively convenient, these products cost little to manufacture, and thus, little to purchase. However, single-use plastics actively contribute to the ever-increasing shifts of climate change; after that “single use,” they live on for decades to centuries in Earth’s landfills, air, and oceans.
Aware of plastic’s detrimental effects, 75% of people worldwide want single-use plastics banned, according to a Reuters report. But what would life look like without such products at every corner? Demonstrated through a recent finding, researchers at the University of Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering might just have an answer.
Through tempering, researchers developed a type of plastic which can shape-shift. When heated then rapidly cooled (experts compare the process of tempering to metalwork), the plastic can take on different shapes depending on the needs of the user.
Researchers envision a world where shape-shifting plastic—made up of the new material “pluripotent”—replaces all other types. Eliminating ineffectual recycling programs, the expansion of pluripotent would reduce the types of plastic to just one. No more sorting through different compositions of plastic to determine which is recyclable.
Dr. Stuart Rowan, a chemist and author at the University of Chicago, predicts a vast variety of applications for the new type of plastic. One potential use, he explains, is space travel: “Rather than taking all the different plastics with you, you take this one plastic…”
The plastic’s adaptability opens opportunities for countless environments which lack access to resources, such as in the ocean or during war.
While, as of February, the plastic can only “shape-shift” around seven times before beginning to decay, the findings reveal a tremendous step toward counteracting climate change.