Research shows that campaigns that try to make consumers feel guilty about the amount they waste often make things worse, not better. A new study poins the way to more effective anti-waste campaigns.
The market for plastic recycling is drying up, prompting a discussion over what to do with household waste.
Steven Depolo
Incineration of household waste has gotten a bad name, argues an economist, who sees today’s recycling crisis as an opportunity to reconsider how the U.S. handles its waste.
Millions of tons of plastic are manufactured every year.
Bert Kaufmann/Wikimedia
In 2015, over 320 million tons of polymers, excluding fibers, were manufactured across the globe.
Single-use biodegradable plastics include claims that they break down quickly into benign end products, but the reality is more complex.
from www.shutterstock.com
New types of biodegradable or compostable plastic products seem to offer an alternative to conventional plastics. But they may be no better for the environment.
We can safely say goodbye to most single-use plastics. But they do have essential uses in some areas, such as for medical or scientific samples, or storing food for humanitarian aid.
Residents of a small Victorian town realised that delicious water can be a curse as well as a blessing, when they lost a legal battle to stop a local farmer shipping groundwater to a nearby bottling plant.
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.
Which council has Australia’s best-tasting water?
Arthur Chapman/Flickr
Tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year, but a switch away from petroleum-based products to bio-derived and degradable composites could lessen marine pollution.