"Future research can build on these results." Scientists discover incredible way to make plastic materials nearly ...

Researchers made a strong, flexible plastic from plant cellulose that breaks down quickly in natural environments, unlike ...

This plant-based plastic is as strong as traditional petroleum-based plastic, but its properties can be tailored to suit ...

The world has a big plastic problem that it's yet to fix. We're trying to reduce our reliance on plastic, but that's seemingly impossible in modern society. The material is too important for our daily ...

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 ...

The Earth is covered in plastic—and we keep making more of it. Caitlin Saks and Arlo Pérez Esquivel join chemist Malika Jeffries-EL in her Boston University lab to explore just what it takes to break ...

Michael Pratt doesn't want to change the way you take out the trash. Instead, he wants to change what happens to trash when it ends up in a landfill or the middle of the ocean. Pratt is the founder of ...

When plastic entered the design world in the 20th century, it was hailed as a wonder material—something strong, durable, lightweight, affordable, and malleable enough to sculpt into expressive, ...

The enzyme-enhanced plastic film had the same strength and flexibility as a standard plastic grocery bag. UC Berkeley photo by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering Some single-use plastics have been replaced ...

A lot has changed in the sixty years since those cinematic words were expressed in Goodbye Columbus. The financial efficacy of a cheap material has given way to environmental concerns, after all, much ...

The tiny waxworm went from zero to hero in 2017 when researchers discovered the caterpillar could potentially help solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems: plastic waste. The ...