The bottles, tubes and containers used annually by the cosmetic industry adds up to 120 billion units of plastics packaging. About 70% ends up in landfills, according to data from 2020.
It may sound like an unusual alliance: an Earth-orbiting space lab and a major comestics brand. But what draws the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, manager of the International Space Station National Lab, and Estée Lauder together is a necessity to tackle plastic waste.
Estée Lauder Companies, whose beauty lines and packaging rely on the safety, hygiene and cost-effectiveness of plastic, but who has also declared waste cleanup and smarter plastic use among its primary sustainability goals, will help fund the projects. One of the ISS winners focuses on microgravity synthesis of aerogel copolymers, led by Dr. Stephen Meckler of the Palo Alto Research Center, Inc., part of Xerox XRX, +0.06%.
This is especially important because the process may be used in mixed plastic recycling consisting of many types of plastics. Results from this project may reveal new recycling mechanisms that could allow previously difficult-to-recycle plastics to be upcycled or made into materials of even higher value than the original plastics.
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