Scientists develop method to turn plastic waste into potentially valuable soil additive

Good news! Human ingenuity can handle palstic, microplastic etc.!

Alert: Plastophobia is a serious disease. Please seek immediate medical attention! (Caution: satire) 😊

I am afraid, the referenced study seems to have little to do with soil additives! Another example how popular science or science news outlets run with a story and modify and/or add to the story!

"... In a recent study, ... detailed a method to convert plastic waste into a highly porous form of charcoal ...
Such charcoal captures carbon and could potentially be added to soil to improve soil water retention and aeration of farmlands. It could also fertilize the soil as it naturally breaks down. ...

It involved mixing one of two common types of plastic with corn waste—the leftover stalks, leaves, husks, and cobs—collectively known as corn stover. The mix was then cooked with highly compressed hot water, a process known as hydrothermal carbonization. ...
using polystyrene, the plastic used for Styrofoam

packaging, and polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the material commonly used to make water and soda bottles, among many other products. ..."

From the abstract:

"The physicochemical properties of char and activated carbon produced from the co-pyrolysis of corn stover (CS) and plastics, polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), were studied. Non-isothermal gas analysis of the volatiles was conducted using an online mass spectrometer to correlate the thermal degradation of gaseous byproducts to the formation of pores in the char materials. The findings determined that the addition of PS or PET promotes the formation of the solid char product with either higher than average pore sizes or surface areas compared to control samples. The addition of PET to corn stover increases the surface area of the char formed. The char formed from a CS:PET mass ratio of 1:1 produced char with a surface area of 423.8 ± 24.8 m2/g at 500 °C and a duration of 2 h. The surface area of the chars formed from CS and PET decreased as the amount of PET decreased, showing a tendency for PET to increase the surface area of the char materials synergistically. The addition of PS to corn stover promoted the formation of chars with, on average, larger pore sizes than the control char samples. The chars were chemically activated with potassium hydroxide, and the activated carbon that formed had lower surface areas but comparable surface functional groups to the control samples. Vanillin adsorption testing showed that activated carbon from corn stover performed the best at removing 95% of the vanillin after 2 h. In contrast, the activated carbon from the chars produced from the co-pyrolysis of corn stover and polystyrene or corn stover and polyethylene terephthalate removed 45% and 46% of vanillin after 2 h, respectively. The findings suggest that plastics have a synergistic relationship in producing char precursors with improved porosity but antagonistically affect the activated carbon adsorbent properties."

Scientists develop method to turn plastic waste into potentially valuable soil additive

Turning plastic waste into a valuable soil additive UC [Riverside] method creates useful char from plastic and corn waste

Synergistic and Antagonistic Effects of the Co-Pyrolysis of Plastics and Corn Stover to Produce Char and Activated Carbon (open access)

Graphical abstract