The research team used a 'new chemical strategy' to create plastic that would degrade naturally.

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 ...

The breakthrough offers a promising new approach to reducing plastic pollution through photocatalysis, a metabolic pathway ...

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 ...

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 ...

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have discovered a way to turn plastic waste into acetic acid, the main ingredient ...

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 ...

Getting microbes to eat plastic is a frequently touted solution to our growing waste problem, but making the approach practical is tricky. A new technique that impregnates plastic with the spores of ...

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 ...