Higher order use of degraded plastic (Styrofoam) as insect repellent

Abstract

Plastics are indispensable for modern life. However, since they come to mix with different materials during production or as they degrade over time, reusing waste plastics for the original purposes requires costs for sorting and cleaning. Consequently, it has become common practice to recycle waste plastics for uses that require lower quality than originally required.
Given this situation, we focus on the mixed state of waste plastics as a value and are looking for ways to reuse them for value-added applications (Figure 1). While there are a variety of potential uses, this article reports on the possibility of using waste plastics as “insect behavior control materials.”

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