Hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York, the Rutgers chemist saw plastic bottles scattered along the path and ...

Many common kitchen items contain hidden plastics or plastic-like materials, from coatings to linings to microplastic ...

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

New research might make you rethink that gum habit. Chewing gum, whether natural or synthetic, contains plant-based or synthetic plastic polymers to enhance texture and flavor retention, making it a ...

Chemists design biodegradable plastics inspired by nature, programming polymers to stay durable in use and break down safely ...

A team of researchers from the University of South Carolina is turning to waste cooking oil in search of an alternative to ...

A tractor making piles of compost. Firms are developing bacteria and enzymes that might one day be used to break down microplastics in compost. Credit: Shutterstock Synthetic polymers have been on the ...

Yuwei Gu was hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York when inspiration struck. Plastic bottles littered the trail and more floated on a nearby lake. The jarring sight in such a pristine ...

"The Problem With Plastic" is both a call to arms and a thorough look at the far-reaching effects of plastic production.

Plastics are widely used but difficult to degrade, posing an ecological challenge. A team from SIAT developed degradable "living plastics" using synthetic biology and polymer engineering. They ...