One key substance can help renew old things

What do recycled bottles, electronic devices and paper have in common? At first sight nothing. When you dig a little deeper, you will find out that the chemical industry can make all these products re-usable with one and the same substance: sodium hydroxide.

In paper recycling, sodium hydroxide is used to remove the ink from paper, allowing the fibres to be re-used. The same chemical is used to purify recycled bottles to make sure they are safe to be re-used as drink containers. Microchips and circuit boards in electronic devices have coatings which need to be removed in order to be re-used. You guessed it, sodium hydroxide can fulfill this task.

By making these products circular, the chemical industry is contributing to making them more sustainable.

Associated SDG targets