Two Nature publications present methods for giving hard-to-recycle polymers a second life.

Danish researchers have developed a way to break down wind turbine blades into their original building blocks. Wind turbine blades are made of epoxy composites reinforced with carbon fibres. Epoxy resins are reactive polymers containing epoxy groups. This type of material is also used in the automotive and aerospace industries. These composites structures are usually buried at the end of their life because there is no suitable recycling strategy. They published their findings in Nature.