Researchers at the University of Waterloo have discovered a way to turn plastic waste into acetic acid, the main ingredient ...

A radical new process “vaporizes” plastic bags and bottles to help make recycled materials. American scientists say the innovative chemical procedure turns ubiquitous waste items into hydrocarbon ...

Graduate student RJ Conk adjusts a reaction chamber in which mixed plastics are degraded into the reusable building blocks of new polymers. A new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics ...

This content was paid for by an advertiser and created by Crain's Custom Content. When walking into any plastics processing plant, you’ll see a device called a temperature control unit, or TCU. A TCU ...

We know that most plastics thrown into the recycling bin don’t get recycled, but what about the ones that do? According to new research, those also end up spitting bits of plastic back into the ...

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 ...

Plastic’s versatile, durable, low-cost and lightweight characteristics are part of why we now depend on it in our everyday lives. From packaging food and medicine to finding use in electronic devices ...

Attempts in the past have tried adding plastic scrap to traditional building products, but shredding the material and dumping it into concrete or asphalt does not work in most applications because ...

Plastic waste in rivers and oceans is constantly releasing chemicals into the water. Until now, it was unknown how large these quantities are and which substances are released particularly strongly.