Researchers are finding plastics in fish in freshwater ecosystems.
(Shutterstock)
Ocean plastic has gained notoriety, but we’re starting to realize that microplastics pollute our freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems too.
Big Foot Productions / www.shutterstock.com
Yet plastic itself isn’t inherently evil as sometimes the environmental benefits outweigh the costs. So how to tell good plastic from bad?
The greenest option might be to get a disposable bottle but never dispose of it.
Shutterstock.com
We all know that tap water is better than buying bottled water, from an environmental standpoint at least. But what should you drink it out of? A single-use bottle, used multiple times, might be best.
Shutterstock
New research has found a way to speed up enzymes that break down the PET plastic in bottles.
A plastic bag floats in the ocean in this 2016 photo.
Creative Commons
Banning plastic bags in food distribution is complicated and not all municipalities are on board. Are bioplastics a solution?
Aldarinho
Cleaning up the oceans will require much better waste management in poorer countries.
Making waves.
armando constantino
Plastics and microplastics in the marine environment are one of the great cause célèbre of our era. Here’s what we know and don’t know.
Not as green as you might think.
Lego
Truly green plastic requires more than sustainable raw materials.
Sustainable swimwear shopping means that you don’t have to worry about the sea soaking in plastic from your bathers while you soak in the sun!
www.shutterstock.com
Summer may have come to an official end, but the plastics from your bathers might still be at the beach!
A trash truck discharges solid waste at the South East Reserve Recovery Facility’s refuse storage pit in Long Beach, California, August 24, 2010.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
Most Americans don’t want incinerators in their neighborhoods, so waste management companies are burning trash in other facilities such as cement kilns. Is this a sustainable way to deal with garbage?
Shutterstock
Plant-based, sustainable plastics may hold many of the answers to our plastic problems.
Uncountable numbers of drink containers end up in the ocean every year.
Shutterstock
Drink containers end up in the ocean at a truly alarming rate. Simply paying people a small amount to return them cuts that rate by nearly half.
A seal trapped in a mat of plastic pollution.
(Nels Israelson/Flickr)
Millions of tonnes of plastic garbage winds up in our oceans each year. Voluntary pledges haven’t worked. It’s time for Canada to advocate for an international plastics treaty.
It’s time to get glam in a green way.
Jason Reed/Reuters
Every festival in Australia sends countless bits of glitter down the drain (and into the ocean). But you can still shine on – in bio-glitter.
A plastic bottle trapped on a coral reef.
Tane Sinclair-Taylor
Coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific have been deluged with an estimated 11.1 billion pieces of plastic waste, increasing the risk of coral disease more than 20-fold.
Meryll/Shutterstock.com
The science is clear but to improve plastic literacy, we need the arts. Here’s why.
Pointing in the wrong direction.
andriano.cz/Shutterstock
A scheme in Wales to introduce personal carbon accounts could point the way to reduce emissions.
MotionWorksFilmStudio / shutterstock
Microbeads from cosmetics are just a drop in the ocean. Other microplastics are more pervasive and just as dangerous.
Albert Karimov / shutterstock
China is no longer importing the world’s recyclable plastic – so what should we do instead?
The short answer is that it depends on the material the cups and plates are made of, and even what shape they are.
Marcella Cheng/The Conversation
Have you ever been told not to put metal in the microwave? Edie, age 8, wants to know why.