US researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have found a new way to ...

In a landfill, a plastic bottle can take more than a thousand years to break down. But a new process can transform polyethylene plastic in days, using bacteria to eat the waste and then turn it into a ...

The use of plastics materials has increased dramatically throughout the world over the past 50 years, and now stands at roughly 100 billion pounds. Commercial plastics are known as resins in North ...

Researchers develop a one-pot, low temperature catalytic method to turn polyethylene polymers into alkylaromatic molecules. When we started using plastics about 70 years ago, not much thought -- if ...

Experts have developed a way of using polyethylene waste (PE) as a feedstock and converted it into valuable chemicals, via light-driven photocatalysis. PE is the most widely used plastic in the world ...

A team at UC Berkeley has developed a process that turns plastic waste into something more valuable – an adhesive. Based on an engineered catalyst, the inspiration was to find ways to "upcycle" ...

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 ...

Upcycling polyethylene (the normal ubiquitous plastic we are all familiar with) into high-value plastics that can compete with “virgin” plastic (meaning plastics made directly from petro-chemicals) is ...

Plastic is becoming a plague on Earth. Not only are landfills bursting with it, but it has also polluted our oceans to the point that a tiny creature that had apparently made microplastics part of its ...

Plastics normally bound for the landfill are getting a new life from California startup Novoloop. The company upcycles polyethylene, a plastic that’s widely used but rarely recycled. With $11 million ...