Plastics

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.

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.

Scientists continue to unearth enzymes that can eat away plastic materials with high efficiency, and a team in Spain has just discovered more in the saliva of wax worms, which have the ability to degrade plastic bags in hours at room temperature.

The latest findings around the impacts of plastic on the human body center on liver and lung cells, which lab research has shown can ingest nano-scale plastic particles and undergo metabolic changes as a result.

Engineers at UIC have developed a device that can efficiently convert captured carbon dioxide into ethylene, a plastic precursor material. When run using renewable energy, the technique could make for net negative emissions in plastic production.

Scientists have turned plastic into diamonds. Using high-powered lasers, the team zapped samples of common PET plastic, which produces intense heat and pressure to form tiny diamonds that may naturally rain down on planets like Uranus and Neptune.

Although polylactic acid bioplastic is known for its biodegradability, it can take a long time to degrade if the conditions aren't right. Washington State University scientists have therefore devised a way of upcycling it into a 3D-printing resin.