Do you place a high priority on recycling? Some people just don’t see enough personal benefit to go out of their way to recycle items rather than just tossing them into the trash bin. Others who are concerned about the environment make it a priority to recycle as much as possible to avoid crowding the landfills.

Once a novelty, recycling became mainstream many years ago. In fact, even the smallest towns often have waste management centers that allow you to recycle everything from aluminum and steel cans to cardboard boxes and plastic bottles.

Sadly, one of the most common types of plastic—polyvinyl chloride or PVC—tends to be one of the least recycled. PVC can be either rigid or flexible, and it’s known for its strength, resistance to chemicals, and waterproof durability.

If you’ve ever done any plumbing work around the house, you’re already familiar with PVC piping, which is one of the most common applications of PVC. However, according to the Vinyl Institute website, PVC boasts a wide variety of popular uses, including:

• Plumbing and construction: water and sewage pipes; electrical cable insulation; window frames; doors; vinyl flooring
• Sports and recreation: yoga mats; inflatable structures; pool floats; air mattresses
• Arts and crafts: stickers; decals; banners
• Healthcare: drip bags; catheters
• Automotive: dashboards, door panels; upholstery
• Agriculture: irrigation pipes; greenhouse films; silo linings; fencing

As common as PVC is, it’s a shame that it’s not recycled more frequently. Thanks to researchers at Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, and the California Institute of Technology, however, that may change one day in the future.

According to a recent Texas A&M Stories article, author Taylor Northcut notes that “[a] multidisciplinary team of researchers from [these universities] has developed…a method for converting [PVC], a widely used plastic with a recycling rate of less than 1%, into polyalphaolefin lubricants that exhibit exceptional friction and wear performance.”

Northcut believes this groundbreaking research could “transform one of the world’s most challenging plastic waste streams into high-performance lubricants with exceptional energy-saving potential, creating a pathway toward more efficient industrial technologies.”

In fact, the “transformation occurs through a series of chemical reactions performed at relatively low temperatures, making it an efficient and economically viable alternative to traditional lubricant production methods. The resulting lubricants demonstrate promising properties, including versatility, higher yield and the potential to advance more sustainable approaches across the plastic and lubricant industries.”

As industrial machinery continues to grow more complex, it’s important to develop new solutions that not only boost efficiency and productivity but also increase sustainability. As other researchers pick up the torch to further develop PVC recycling programs and transformation of that waste into advanced industrial lubricants, industries around the world will need more workers with advanced knowledge and hands-on skills in both process control and instrumentation and chemical engineering.

With skilled workers in high demand but difficult to find, industry leaders will need to work closely with local companies and educational institutions to ensure a steady stream of talent for their advanced manufacturing facilities.

When it comes to training the next generation of advanced manufacturing workers, educators and industry partners alike would do well to partner with experts in technical training, such as DAC Worldwide.

DAC Worldwide specializes in hands-on training systems that feature common industrial components that workers will encounter on the job. To learn more about the types of training systems DAC Worldwide offers, check out the links below:

• DAC Worldwide’s Process Control and Instrumentation Training Systems
• DAC Worldwide’s Smart Process Plant Training System (603-SP)
• Advanced chemical engineering training systems from its partner, Pignat SAS

Visit DAC Worldwide online to learn more about its wide variety of industrial training systems.