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 ...

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 ...

What if we could help the global plastic waste problem and the transportation industry with the same technology? A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames National Laboratory is ...

A team of chemists is pioneering a new approach to creating plastics made from whole-cell algae and common chemical components. These biohybrid plastics are strong, highly adaptable, and fully ...

A radical new process "vaporizes" plastic bags and bottles to help make recycled materials. The innovative chemical procedure turns the ubiquitous waste items into hydrocarbon "building blocks" for ...

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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 ...

A tractor making piles of compost. Firms are developing bacteria and enzymes that might one day be used to break down microplastics in compost. Credit: Shutterstock Synthetic polymers have been on the ...

While biodegradable plastics and recycling technologies have received widespread attention, a quieter revolution is taking place in the form of plant-based coatings for plastics. These innovative ...