Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, is the most produced plastic in the United States and the third most produced worldwide. Much of the plastic used in hospital equipment—tubing, blood bags, masks, and more—is PVC, as is most of the piping used in modern plumbing, but the material has a zero-percent recycling rate until now. University of Michigan researchers, led by study first author Danielle Fagnani and principal investigator Anne McNeil, have discovered a way to recycle PVC into usable material chemically.
