Plastic waste

The amount of single-use plastics the world disposed of during the pandemic continues to be a huge environmental headache. A clever new upcycling method, though, takes the trash and turns it into one increasingly lucrative piece of tech, carbon dots.

Although disposable plastic straws are being phased out, their "greener" replacements have a few shortcomings of their own. Well, scientists have now developed bioplastic straws that don't get soggy, but do biodegrade when discarded.

Scientists have described a new disease called plasticosis, caused by – you guessed it – plastic waste. So far it's only been identified in the digestive tracts of seabirds, but the scale of the problem suggests it could be widespread in other species.

Greenhouse gases and plastic waste are two of the biggest environmental problems the world faces today. A new reactor from Cambridge tackles both at once, converting CO2 and used plastic bottles into useful materials, powered entirely by sunlight.

A new study documenting the accumulation of microplastic particles on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea has shed some new light on plastic pollution, finding that concentrations of this material on the floor of the Med has tripled since 2000.

Plastics are made to last, which is great while they’re being used but not so great after they’re discarded. Chemists have now developed a new kind of plastic that has all the durability of regular plastic, but biodegrades within months or even days.

Researchers in Auckland have used advanced chemical analysis to calculate the amount of microplastic particles falling from the sky over the city, equating it to three million plastic bottles each year.

Loose plastic bags can be a hassle to store for recycling, plus they may blow away and become litter if they're left outside at the recycling depot. The Clear Drop SPC is made to help, by compressing loads of your bags into compact bricks.

If you've ever been turning over your compost heap and found months-old "compostable" plastic items that were still mostly intact – well, you're not alone. New research states that 60% of such plastics don't fully degrade in home composting systems.

Plastic waste is one of the most pressing environmental problems of our time. Now, engineers at MIT have developed an effective new catalyst that breaks down mixed plastics into propane, which can then be burned as fuel or used to make new plastic.

In a bid to reduce the environmental burden associated with both the manufacturing and disposal of plastics, scientists have demonstrated a new upcycling technique that turns one common form of it into another.

The Ocean Cleanup has a huge task on its hands in ridding the seas of plastic waste, but a new video offers a compelling look at its latest plan of attack, portraying massive trash-collection barriers sweeping through the seas with great efficiency.