The research team used a 'new chemical strategy' to create plastic that would degrade naturally.

Little pieces of polymer plastic. The plastics industry is trying to be as clean as possible, but it has a lot of obstacles to overcome. The late great comedian George Carlin once said that perhaps ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic ends up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials ...

They’re tenacious, which is very good for a milk jug or a car bumper. But they don’t easily break down, which is bad for the environment. From the 1950s, when plastics were first produced in ...

Polypropylene and polyethylene are two durable and affordable plastics commonly used as packaging materials, snack wrappers, ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic end up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials scientists ...

The creation of plastics from polymers is now an old industry. So, there are many methods, sub-methods, and specific synthetic variations now used by academics and industry scientists to create ...

Sunlight hits tiny particles of plastic floating in a clear water solution. Slowly, they begin to disappear, leaving behind a ...

Sibele Cestari works for Queen's University of Belfast. She receives funding from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The disposal of plastics is a global problem. They are ...

From its early beginnings during and after World War II, the commercial industry for polymers – long chain synthetic molecules of which “plastics” are a common misnomer – has grown rapidly. In 2015, ...