A research group led by Washington State University scientists has found a way to turn daily plastic waste products into jet fuel. In a new paper published in the journal Applied Energy, WSU's Hanwu Lei and colleagues melted plastic waste at high temperature with activated carbon, a processed carbon with increased surface area, to produce jet fuel. "Waste plastic is a huge problem worldwide," said Lei, an associate professor in WSU's Department of Biological System Engineering. "This is a very good, and relatively simple, way to recycle these plastics." How it works In the experiment, Lei and colleagues tested low-density polyethylene and mixed a variety of waste plastic products, like water bottles, milk bottles, and plastic bags, and ground them down to around three millimeters, or about the size of a grain of rice. The plastic granules were then placed on top of activated carbon in a tube reactor at a high temperature, ranging from 430 degree Celsius to 571 degrees Ce