Raw materials are key for the climate transition. Electric vehicles, for example, require cobalt, nickel, lithium, and manganese for their batteries and platinum for fuel cells.
IM Imagery/Shutterstock
The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act came into force on 23 May, marking the bloc’s largest attempt to secure its own source of materials needed for the green transition.
Waste pickers in Sasolburg, South Africa. Jonathan Torgovnik/
Getty Images
Existing laws and regulations failed to prevent asbestos contamination of mulch. What’s missing is mandatory certification of recycled products so users can be sure they’ve been tested and are safe.
According to a textile sorter and processor based in the East Midlands, approximately 40% of sorted garments were not fit for reuse and needed a recycling solution.
NicoleTaklaPhotography/Shutterstock
Growing mountains of textile waste are hard to recycle. There is scope to improve chemical and mechanical recycling methods but consumers and fashion brands play a role in reducing overproduction.
Could this heap of junk prevent us from having to open a new mine?
Hellebardius
Mining precious metals is expensive and environmentally destructive. As an alternative, researchers are increasingly eyeing recycling old smartphones, computers and other electronics.
An essential part of managing a growing global waste problem is sorting, recovering and recycling it. But you won’t see this on children’s shows that feature waste collection.
A worker sorting plastic bottles at a recycling plant in Lagos.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP / Getty Images
A central question remains unresolved in the draft treaty: Is plastic pollution basically a waste management problem, or can it be solved only with a cap on production?
Understanding the success of the ABC’s War on Waste is a lesson in behavioural psychology. Research reveals five ways to guide other entertainment-education interventions to similar success.
A beach littered with plastic and other waste in the fishing village of Kayar, north of Dakar, Senegal.
Bara Deme
United Nations efforts to advance a global treaty on plastic pollution echo past multilateral agreements that tackled ozone layer depletion and acid rain.
Behind the Red Moon, a large scale sculptural installation at the Tate Turbine Hall in London.
Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images
A team of scientists has developed a method for creating a new class of plastic materials that are potentially more recyclable than single-use plastics.