How To Solve the Mounting Problem of Plastic Waste? Focus on Its Chemical Roots DOE Funding Pairs NREL with Academic, Nonprofit, and Industry Scientists To Transform How We Create and Recycle Plastic Feb. 3, 2021 NREL researcher Chen Wang works on a UV-light setup to study light-driven oxidation reactions to degrade commodity plastics, such as polystyrene and polyethylene. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL Plastic pollution is a recognized global challenge. According to Our World in Data, since 1950, only 9% of the roughly 5.8 billion tons of plastic waste has been recycled. Experts estimate that there will be more plastic than fish by mass in the ocean by