Mexican researchers have developed a chemical process to convert plastics into gasoline and fats. “We believe that in five years our research may be utilized in industrial-scale processes,” scientist Julia Aguilar, of the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico, told Tierramérica.

The experts already have a reactor functioning in which low-density plastics are degraded into high-octane gasoline and fats. “But we are still doing so by milliliters,” said Aguilar, adding that greater development of the process is a short way off, and the university will be filing a patent on the process in 2008.

Transforming plastics into other materials through chemical catalysts and reactors has been done in industrialized countries for years, but Mexico is the first Latin American country to do so.