Plastics

You may have downed the blue-green algae known as spirulina while on a health kick, but now, researchers have used it to create a bioplastic that will degrade in your compost bin in the same amount of time it takes for a banana peel to break down.

Nylon can be found everywhere in modern life, from the clothes we wear to the seatbelts in our cars. The problem is that producing it can be a dirty business, but researchers say a new method can make nylon production significantly greener.

Newly discovered cold-adapted microorganisms "eat" plastic at temperatures lower than currently required. The discovery is the first step towards developing a more effective industrial-scale method of ridding the planet of plastic pollution.

Although ebikes are generally thought of as a green form of transportation, most are made of materials with a fairly large carbon footprint. The Multipath is a bit different, in that its frame is made of recycled plastic and alloy.

While we use around five trillion plastic bags every year, disposable alternatives aren't that much better. A group of scientists, however, want us to rethink the humble paper bag, making it super strong, durable and a handy source of biofuel.

When we think of graphene, we tend to think of its use in applications like electronics, medical devices and construction materials. Now, however, it's been incorporated into an additive which reportedly boosts the performance of humble plastic film.

Scallops' soft bodies are well-protected by their hard shells, so … could those same shells protect human heads? That question was asked by the Japanese designers of the Shellmet, which is a helmet made partially of scallop shells.

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.

Advances in chemistry continue to bring new materials into the realm of recyclability, and new work from a research team at the University of Michigan has taken aim at one of the most problematic to reuse.

Scientists at Stanford University have analyzed microplastic concentrations and the foraging habits of whales off the coast of California, and found that blue whales take in an estimated 10 million pieces of plastic each day.

A new report has looked at activity at a broad range of recycling facilities across the US and found that the vast majority of plastic waste generated by households wound up in landfill, with less than 5% actually recycled.