PolymPart: With the ever-increasing problem of plastic waste showing no sign of relenting, can a new breed of sustainable polymer end the nightmare? In 2016, a 17-strong team of executives and analysts working for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation claimed that by 2050 the world’s oceans are expected to contain, by weight, more plastics than fish. […]

PolymPart: A few large facilities make plastic, dispersed through converters and suppliers, which ultimately ends up in the hands of consumers. Tens of production sites feed hundreds of converters supplying thousands of stores shopped by millions of consumers. Virtually everyone in a modern society touches plastic almost every minute of every day. We now recognize […]

Polympart: At this point, recycling won’t save us. But there are some other scientific innovations that might. This is not a good look. Humans are using more oil-based plastic than ever, with devastating environmental consequences. It is not altogether clear how we reverse what has become known as the plastic pandemic. Mix of potential solutions At […]

PolymPart: The face of Canada’s battle against plastic pollution could change in a matter of days. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), has plans to meet in Ottawa on Friday, November 23. The meeting has not been talked about much in the media and it is not well publicized, however, if all […]

PolymPart: Every minute, a dumptruckful of plastic plops into the world’s oceans. That’s eight billion metric tons every year. Once waterborne, whatever doesn’t wash ashore eventually breaks down into itty bits. The puniest pieces—the ones smaller than 5 millimeters wide—are called microplastics, and their fates are numerous. Some glob onto an Alaska-sized gyre of plastic […]

PolymPart Reports: Our dependence on plastics is a major environmental issue. Plastic barely degrades, and it’s filling our landfills and oceans faster than we can get rid of it. But scientists and designers have come up with a viable replacement for plastic in many of its applications: fungus. Motherboard correspondent Alejandro Tauber traveled to Utrecht […]