Seeing plastic trash while hiking inspired a Rutgers chemist to rethink why synthetic plastics last forever while natural ...

Plastic trash lining a mountain trail might not seem like the start of a chemistry breakthrough, but for Yuwei Gu, it was.

Plastic trash accumulates in trees and shrubs along the Los Angeles River. Citizen of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images To better understand why plastics don’t ...

Researchers led by Takuzo Aida at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have one-upped themselves in their quest to solve our microplastic problem. Subscribe to our newsletter ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic end up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials scientists ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic ends up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials ...

Our team used superglue as a starting material to develop a low-cost, recyclable, and easily produced transparent plastic called polyethyl cyanoacrylate that has properties similar to those of ...

A new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics that dominate the waste stream today and turn them into hydrocarbon building blocks for new plastics. The catalytic process, developed at the ...

Plastic is a material of possibilities. It can hold groceries and take photographs; it constitutes ski coats and desk chairs and toothbrushes and suitcases. It can do all these things with the same ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic ends up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can't last forever. But our group of materials ...