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plastic waste

12/08/2018 / By Edsel Cook

Could the solution to plastic pollution be found in this caterpillar?

Caterpillars are hungry little creatures. They eat a lot of food and store it as energy for their future transformation into butterflies or moths. While they usually eat plant matter, a BBC article reported that the larvae of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) appeared to eat plastic. An amateur beekeeper found a caterpillar of […]

11/15/2018 / By Isabelle Z.

A cheaper alternative? Scientists looking at converting plastic waste into hydrogen fuel

The problem of plastic waste pollution shows no signs of letting up. Around eight million tons of plastic waste are making their way into our oceans every year, and the problem is only expected to get worse as plastic production will need to grow by three or four times by 2050 to meet demand. Although […]

06/03/2018 / By Vicki Batts

Engineers have figured out a way to reduce plastic landfill, and you won’t believe how they’re doing it

Humans have generated an enormous amount of plastic waste over the last few decades – there is no question about that. It’s estimated that between 1950 and 2015, a staggering 8.3 billion tons of plastic was produced. And, as one might expect, a sad majority of it has ended up in landfills. The question of what […]

05/18/2018 / By David Williams

EU sets a 70 percent recycling target for waste by 2020, starts by designing a modified bacteria that lives off plastic

Plastic pollution is a very serious problem in many different parts of the world. It has caused a great deal of harm to the environment and continues to affect many people’s lives every single day. Europe suffers from it just like any other place on Earth. Fortunately, the concept of plastic recycling exists. And that […]

04/09/2018 / By Janine Acero

Plastic pollution being re-purposed to break down dyes from wastewater

People use plastic for a variety of reasons, which has given way to the production of different kinds of the material. However, one of the unintended consequences of such an expansion is that of improper disposal. Experts have developed recycling methods to reduce plastic waste, in an effort to mitigate environmental damage. Now a joint […]

02/21/2018 / By Edsel Cook

The ocean’s filter feeders threatened by microplastics: Whales, sharks and rays are dying from obstructions, toxins

Plastics have long been known to pose a threat to sea life. But now tiny bits of toxic microplastics are threatening to choke and poison many of the ocean’s gentlest giants, warned articles in EcoWatch and The Guardian. Published in the Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal, a new study took a look at the possible effects […]

02/08/2018 / By Ralph Flores

Another danger for coral reefs: Plastic trash transports microorganisms that spread disease across the ocean floor

The phrase “deep, blue sea” may slowly become a thing of the past, as more seas and oceans are being filled up with waste plastic. Its adverse effects have surely been felt by nearly all marine life, but a team of international researchers led by Cornell University has discovered one more unfortunate effect of plastic. They found out that plastic waste […]

12/06/2017 / By Janine Acero

Science mystery: The volume of microplastics in the Baltic Sea has remained constant over the last 30 years, despite the increase in plastic production, and scientists don’t know why

The supposed correlation of the increasing rate of plastic waste to the rise in concentration of microplastics in fish and seawater is now being contradicted by a long-term study spanning 30 years. Researchers at DTU Aqua, the University of Copenhagen, and GEOMAR in Kiel analyzed the level of microplastics in fish and water samples from […]

10/29/2017 / By Janine Acero

Our oceans are so polluted that the coral are now eating plastic, new study finds

Scientists believe corals have developed a taste for plastic adrift the oceans, which means corals are ingesting the chemical additives within these plastics, as reported in a Daily Mail article. The researchers at Duke University discovered the concerning situation after the corals in their experiments ate all types of plastics, “but preferred unfouled microplastics by a threefold […]

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