Scientists turn old plastic bags into soap

Could these humble plastic bags be turned into hand wash?

Scientists at a university in the US have discovered a method to turn plastic bags into soap.

The team at Virginia Tech made the discovery by heating and cooling plastic bags to create a substance that forms a major ingredient of soap

"Plastic pollution is a major problem we face today," said Greg Liu at Virginia Tech.

The researchers hope they can use their findings to 'upcycle' more things into soap.

How do you turn plastic bags into soap?

The secret is in the chemical makeup of soap-making

Polyethylene is a chemical structure that makes up a lot of plastic bags we use at the moment.

It's very similar to the chemical make-up of fatty acids used to make soap and detergent.

Researchers set themselves with a task of finding a way to turn polyethylene into the material it needed to be to make a fatty acid.

Using a special machine to heat and then cool the material at the same time, the plastic becomes a wax.

These waxes are then mixed with the usual ingredients to form soap.

You currently have to pay a charge to get a plastic bag from a shop in the UK

Zhen Zu, who wrote the paper publishing the research, said the technique found a new way to upcycle without the need for complicated methods.

Can you make soap from other plastics?

The team say the technique also works on polypropylene, heavily used plastic found in coffee cups and food packaging.

Some plastics are made up of different types mixed together and Zhen Zu hopes this method won't require the different materials to be separated to make it work.

What do you think of the new process? Let us know in the comments