By Jeannette Cwienk When it comes to recycling and recyclability, very little, it seems is straightforward — even something as seemingly simple as orange juice can present a conundrum. In Germany, many smaller shops sell drinks in cartons or plastic bottles, both of which will end up in the yellow recycling bin. But how do […]
Scientists have engineered a mutant enzyme that converts 90 percent of plastic bottles back to pristine starting materials that can then be used to produce new high-quality bottles in just hours. The discovery could revolutionize the recycling industry, which currently saves about 30 percent of PET plastics from landfills, reported Science Magazine. Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) […]
All those phones, computers and tablets we rely on are dependent on mined resources. Extracting and processing those resources accounts for nearly half of our greenhouse gas emissions, which is why the European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan calls for “initiatives for the entire life cycle of products, from design and manufacturing to consumption, repair, […]
Starbucks is pilot testing environmentally friendly cups that look and feel just like the company’s normal cups, but the plastic lining has been replaced with a compostable liner, making the cups recyclable and compostable, according to CNN. The coffee giant is introducing the cups in five major markets: New York, San Francisco, Seattle, London and […]
Women have long been at the forefront of the effort to protect the Earth and its creatures. Some of them, like Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall, are household names. Others, like around 55 percent of the people who hit the streets for 2014’s People’s Climate March, are anonymous (s)heroes. In between these extremes are many women […]
Just because that plastic item you rinsed out and placed in your blue bin says it is recyclable doesn’t mean it actually is. A new Greenpeace report released Tuesday found many examples of companies putting misleading labels on products that could not actually be processed by most U.S. material recovery facilities (MRFs). “Retailers and consumer […]
The world is using up more and more resources and global recycling is falling. That’s the grim takeaway from a new report by the Circle Economy think tank, which found that the world used up more than 110 billion tons, or 100.6 billion metric tons, of natural resources, as Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The Dutch […]
Despite its status as the world’s No. 1 corporate plastic polluter, Coca-Cola won’t be phasing out its single-use plastic bottles anytime soon. The reason? Customers like them too much, the company’s head of sustainability Bea Perez told BBC News at the World Economic Forum in Davos Tuesday. Perez said that customers value the bottles because […]
By Clyde Eiríkur Hull and Eric Williams Countries around the world throw away millions of tons of plastic trash every year. Finding ways to manage plastic waste is daunting even for wealthy nations, but for smaller and less-developed countries it can be overwhelming. We recently carried out a study for the Caribbean island nation of […]
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