By Christopher Thompson Plastic pollution poses serious health risks to wildlife globally, affecting a wide range of species including whales, turtles, fish and birds. On World Migratory Bird Day, celebrated on 11 May, two UN wildlife treaties and conservationists around the world are calling for urgent action to stop plastic pollution by highlighting its negative […]

By Ryan Johnson U.S. firms are reopening paper mills, expanding plants to turn recycled waste into something useful and need more glass, plastics and paper Alpine Waste & Recycling shut down its Denver recycling facility for a month to retrofit the plant with new technology and equipment. When it reopened in the middle of March, […]

By Ryan Johnson They will have to overcome the challenges of America’s convenient single-stream recycling system Nobody wants to spend hours picking through a steady stream of garbage; this is why many recycling operations rely on automated systems to separate plastic containers, glass bottles, aluminum cans and mixed paper. But these systems have an imperfect […]

By Christopher Thompson A new material called PDK can be disassembled and reassembled at a molecular level. We’re drowning in plastics. That’s why the world’s brightest minds are trying to find a way we can effectively deal with plastic waste and make sure we don’t add more in the coming years. Now, researchers from the […]

By Christopher Thompson U.N. negotiations seek deal on trade in plastic waste * Norway proposal would require importer’s prior consent * U.S. is a leading major plastics exporter, but not in treaty By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA, May 7 – Countries are nearing agreement to tighten controls on trade in plastic waste, which would make it […]

By Christopher Thompson From native species to Indigenous land management and water efficiency: Australia’s role in the extinction crisis A devastating new UN report shows the planet is in serious danger from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. Here we look at 10 of the key points from the report – and […]

By Christopher Thompson Sure, we all know there’s always more fish in the sea. But there’s also plenty more plastic garbage. Since 1957, scientific gear used to measure plankton in the north Atlantic Ocean has been clogged by plastic trash some 669 times. Almost all of those snarls have occurred since the late 1990s, showcasing […]

By Ryan Johnson Nobody, it seemed, had thought to look before. When two Austrian scientists discovered last year that it’s likely most people have plastic inside their bodies, it wasn’t because they had invented some new, complicated scientific method. It was because they were the first to check. Their approach was simple. They asked eight […]

By Christopher Thompson While banning or reducing the use of plastic bags and straws has become a headline cause for brands, governments and environmental activists in recent years, cigarette butts are actually the most littered waste stream on the planet. With some six trillion butts polluting the Earth each year, smoking isn’t just a public […]

By Christopher Thompson We use plastic every day for bags, straws and bottles, but have you ever thought about what happens after you throw it away? Plastic trash takes decades to biodegrade, breaking into tiny particles called microplastics, which eventually end up in the ocean. Sea creatures such as turtles, fish and whales then digest […]