A radical new process “vaporizes” plastic bags and bottles to help make recycled materials. American scientists say the innovative chemical procedure turns ubiquitous waste items into hydrocarbon ...

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 ...

Equipment maker Lindner and Procter & Gamble say their solvent-based Flexloop process can remove impurities from recycled polymer chains.

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 ...

A new study led by Colorado State University Distinguished Professor Eugene Chen outlines a path to creating advanced, recyclable plastics. Published in Nature, the study describes a breakthrough ...

Most of us have by now realized that conventional plastic recycling is more fantasy than reality. Despite our best attempts at separating out product packaging in the ...

At Austin Resource Recovery in Texas, styrofoam is densified so it can be recycled. While hot, the gooey substance looks like octopus arms squeezing out of a machine. “From here we take these, and we ...

Consumer product companies have walked back their plastics sustainability goals, and many recyclers are closing their doors ...