June 11th, 2019 | by Steve Hanley
Plastic trash used to be a simple problem. Bundle it up, put it on a freighter, and ship it off to China. That worked really well until China stopped allowing plastic waste into the country. All of sudden, the countries producing all that trash had no idea what to do with it
June 3rd, 2019 | by Steve Hanley
Demand for plastics is expected to skyrocket over the next several decades, adding many gigatons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Can anything be done? Yes, keep oil and gas in the ground.
May 31st, 2019 | by Erika Clugston
Aivan, a Finnish design company, used fungus, yeast, and other naturally-derived materials to create a pair of concept headphones
May 31st, 2019 | by Erika Clugston
The company now runs on 100% renewables, but continues to face the problem of its dependence on petroleum-based plastics
May 18th, 2019 | by Cynthia Shahan
Amanda Kistler, Director of Communications and Development at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), has shared a new report with CleanTechnica. The full report, Plastic & Climate The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, was released on May 15, 2019. Below is a summary of the report and several highlights from it
May 9th, 2019 | by Steve Hanley
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say they have a found a way to make plastics that are fully recyclable. That could be a significant breakthrough for a world drowning in plastic detritus.
February 20th, 2019 | by Erika Clugston
Teams and individuals will compete for one year to propose their innovative solutions to the world’s plastic crisis
January 31st, 2019 | by Carolyn Fortuna
Why are so many corporations pledging to reduce single-use plastics instead of eliminating them altogether now
December 31st, 2018 | by Tina Casey
Global oil and gas giants are hedging agains EVs and renewable energy by growing their petrochemicals business, but other corporate giants can thwart them
November 7th, 2018 | by Kyle Field
Engaging in an honest, factual and logical debate isn't always possible, but the folks over at Kialo are on a mission to maximize the likelihood of a positive outcome, whatever the topic may be. Their platform was built to allow just about anyone to have a structured online debate about just about anything
October 16th, 2018 | by The Beam
An interview with social entrepreneur and plastic pollution activist Shilpi Chhotray
September 18th, 2018 | by Michael Barnard
Boyan's vision could have fallen apart at multiple points over the past five years. Reisser's study or someone else's could have shown a much more even distribution of plastics through dozens of meters of water column. Plastics could have degraded more quickly in ocean water and sunlight. He could have failed to capture many people's imaginations
May 22nd, 2018 | by Nexus Media
Researchers have developed a process to separate fiberglass from resin. This was a task that had proved nearly impossible earlier — and the primary reason the two substances are nearly impossible to recycle. They must be separated to make them reusable. Scientists hope their research will be used to develop a “zero-waste” cell phone.
January 30th, 2018 | by Cynthia Shahan
Everyone needs to more determinedly limit or do away with all plastic choices — especially those that go ridiculously far and cross an ocean to be recycled (polluting on the way). The UK is facing an immediate crisis of excess plastic waste. The Chinese said there is to be a halt in taking plastic trash from the UK, which has shipped 2.7 tonnes of plastic scrap for recycling in the past few years to China
December 12th, 2017 | by James Ayre
A number of countries in Europe (and elsewhere) currently employ plastic bottle deposit return programs -- programs which essentially pay consumers to return their used plastic bottles to grocery stores where they are collected in exchange for cash back or store credit
November 7th, 2017 | by Steve Hanley
Researchers at Osaka University have created a catalyst that breaks down chemicals derived from biomass into industrial feedstocks for making plastics. The process is inexpensive and carbon neutral.
October 31st, 2017 | by James Ayre
Rather than it simply being the case that corals eat tiny plastic debris because they mistake it for prey, chemical additives in the plastic may be acting as a feeding stimulant — making the plastic "taste good" — according to a new study from Duke University. As a reminder here, corals have no eyes, and aren't thought to possess much of a visual system
October 31st, 2017 | by Andrea Bertoli
YASED was a top ten finalist at the Climate Launchpad event, and we got to sit down with the team and discuss the future of plastics recycling.
September 14th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Execs at a number of the world's top fossil fuel companies have in recent years made comments inferring that even after demand for oil and natural gas peaks, demand for petrochemical feedstocks for plastics, fertilizers, and other chemicals will remain strong
September 10th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The scale of the world's current micro plastics pollution problem can't be overstated. Plastics, and more importantly their nearly invisible half-broken-down remnants, are now everywhere. They're in the food you eat, the water you drink, and even often enough in the air you breathe
December 9th, 2013 | by Jo Borrás
The majority of plastics used in the world today come from petroleum. Oil, in other words. But it doesn’t have [&hellip
November 28th, 2013 | by Jo Borrás
Combining camping, kayaking, and the incredibly efficient Hobie Cat kayak “Mirage Drive” human-powered propulsion system in a single, forward-looking, bio-degradable [&hellip
November 19th, 2013 | by Jo Borrás
Coca-Cola introduced its innovative PlantBottle technology back in 2009. Since then, more than 18 billion PlantBottle packages have reached the [&hellip
September 3rd, 2013 | by Susanna Schick
At the Women in Green Forum, we had the pleasure of not only watching Dr. Ellen Lee give a presentation on the work Ford is doing to end their dependency on petroleum-based materials, but also sat down with her to get to the tofu of the matter... Dr. Ellen Lee and her team spend their days devising new ways to make plastic more sustainable. She does this at Ford, so it’s not just about renewable resources, but also about reducing weight. She’s always on the lookout for the lightest materials with the lowest environmental impact at Ford prices
