Graduate student RJ Conk adjusts a reaction chamber in which mixed plastics are degraded into the reusable building blocks of new polymers. A new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics ...

One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there’s not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable and different enough from existing food sources that ...

The world is miserable at recycling plastics. Currently, just 10–15% of the plastic waste we generate annually is recycled — with the rest incinerated, buried in landfill or dumped as litter 1, 2. A ...

EMBARGO: THIST CONTENT IS UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 11 AM U.S. EASTERN STANDARD TIME ON JULY 2, 2025. INTERESTED MEDIA MAY RECIVE A PREVIEW COPY OF THE JOURNAL ARTICLE IN ADVANCE OF THAT DATE OR CONDUCT ...

Yuwei Gu was hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York when inspiration struck. Plastic bottles littered the trail and more floated on a nearby lake. The jarring sight in such a pristine ...

Note: Eastman Chemical Company’s first “molecular recycling” facility is now fully operational in Kingsport. It uses a process called methanolysis to reduce hard-to-recycle waste plastic to its ...

Researchers in Germany are set to turn green waste, hay and algae into fully biodegradable plastics. They believe such plastics can be used in medical products, car components, insulation and ...

Why it matters: All that packaging we've treated as disposable may finally be reborn. Researchers have cracked the code for turning plastic back into the building blocks to make new plastics. It could ...

The Canadian chemical recycler is working to scale up a unique process it says is more flexible and cost effective than traditional pyrolysis. Image courtesy of Aduro Clean Technologies Inc. As it has ...

The move to a circular economy for plastics is imminent. With the fourth round of negotiations for the global treaty on plastics pollution happening later this month, and the signing of the final text ...