Polyethylene plastics — in particular, the ubiquitous plastic bag that blights the landscape — are notoriously hard to recycle. They’re sturdy and difficult to break down, and if they’re recycled at ...

Around one-third of all plastics produced contain polyethylene, a lightweight, durable thermoplastic with a global value of $200 billion per year. Such plastics are cheap and easy to produce.

Only a small percentage of plastic bags and other polyethylene packaging is recycled because only low-value products can be made from this waste. Chemists have created a catalytic process that ...

The fastest way to heat food and drink might also rank as the fastest route to ingesting massive quantities of minuscule plastic particles, says new research from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

A couple of years ago, scientists discovered an enzyme in a waste recycling center in Japan that digests plastic. During a recent experiment to understand how this enzyme works, scientists ...

Susan Selke receives funding from the Center for Packaging Innovations and Sustainability, Michigan State University. Rafael Auras receives funding from the Center for Packaging Innovations and ...

PLASTIC production has tripled over the past 25 years, and the mess it causes has risen commensurately. Recycling is one option. Another is biology, and with that in mind researchers have been hunting ...