Most “compostable” plastic won’t break down easily in a backyard compost bin. And the process can take so long at an industrial composting facility that many facilities that take food waste refuse the ...

If you buy a smoothie in Portland, Oregon, the drink might come in a compostable plastic cup, a choice a thoughtful owner might make to make their operations more sustainable. You might think, at a ...

If you've ever been turning over your compost heap and found months-old "compostable" plastic items that were still mostly intact – well, you're not alone. New research states that 60% of such ...

Seemingly every corner of our world is now littered with plastics, and only a tiny percentage of it is ever recycled. To mitigate this, many companies are offering items labeled as “compostable” or ...

Most people know by now that the disposable plastic used for take-out food is an environmental hazard. Containers, cups, utensils, straws — very little of it gets recycled and very much of it ends up ...

It was hailed as a wonderful thing: During the oil boom in the 1950s, chemists began to render the waste coming out of refineries into plastic — plastic packaging, plastic furniture, plastic fibers ...

In a new study, scientists at the Spanish Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research and the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA-CSIC) argue that compostable plastics, ...

Materials scientists are cooking up environmentally friendly polymers from natural sources like silk, plant fibers and whole algae. Economics and acceptance remain hurdles. By Boyce Upholt / Knowable ...

In the eagerness to prove the sustainability of plastics, an idea blossomed that somehow someone could turn plastic into soil, mimicking the life cycle of a leaf or grass. Thus began the quest for the ...

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% ...

We can’t lie to ourselves anymore. Plastic is oil. It doesn’t biodegrade (instead it photodegrades, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces). It’s poison to animals and a scourge for our wildlands ...