plastics

If you are wondering what the future of manufacturing looks like, all you need to do is visit the fourth floor of a brick building in the London borough of Camden. There, in a Biosafety Level 2 laboratory obtained from refitting half of an open-plan office, chemists and biologists in goggles and white coats are busy operating bulky machinery and parsing the contents of reactors and vats filled with a thick yellow goo. On the other side of the lab’s thick glass partitions, employees sporting hoodies and eating from Itsu…

Researchers have taken a key step toward greatly expanding the range of plastics that can be recycled.Scientists have taken a key step toward greatly expanding the range of plastics that can be recycled. The study, which was led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and includes an Oregon State University (OSU) College of Engineering faculty member, will be published today (October 13) in the journal Science.This breakthrough is important because plastic waste is a massive problem…

As an old saying goes, you can't fight city hall, meaning government. But the people of St. James Parish, La., did just that—and they won a major court victory against a massive plastics plant supported by the governor, state and local legislators, the business community and local power brokers. Led by Sharon Lavigne of Rise St. James, a faith-based grassroots organization fighting to reduce pollution in the community, and lawyers at Earthjustice, a national nonprofit environmental law organization, and other community…

Though we have much to learn about the health impacts of exposure to tiny plastic particles, studies continue to shed important light on how they might behave in the human body. The latest findings in this space center on liver and lung cells, which lab research has shown can ingest nano-scale plastic particles and undergo metabolic changes as a result.Amid the many discoveries being made around plastic waste and its path through the environment, studies have begun to delve into the potential impacts on the human body.…

Despite being an excellent source of renewable energy, wind turbines, like most manufactured products, eventually need to be disposed of, for one reason or another. That poses an obviously large problem given their size, but researchers at Michigan State University are working on a novel solution: a newly developed material for making turbines that can be later recycled into everything from car parts to gummy bears.The same arguments for upgrading your smartphone every year, such as improving its performanceor replacing…

Researchers have developed a method to make plastics more degradable in natural environments, with the use of Ultraviolet (UV) light. According to scientists at the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technology (CSCT) of the University of Bath, the degradability of a polymer used in the material used to create disposable plastic items can be changed by modifying it composition. The plastic could be degraded by up to 40 percent within six hours of UV light exposure, according to the researchers.Currently, a material…

They discovered that incorporating even 3% of sugar polymer units into PLA (Poly(lactic acid) caused PLA to degrade by 40% after six hours of UV exposure.Researchers from the University of Bath discovered that adding sugar units to polymers increases their degradability when exposed to UV radiationMany plastics that bear the biodegradable label can only be composted in industrial settings, but researchers at the University of Bath have now discovered a method to break down plastics using just UV light.The public’s concern…

While researchers continue to deepen our understanding of plastic contamination throughout the environment, much of the focus centers on marine organisms and of course humans themselves. Scientists in the UK have turned their eye to small land mammals and found traces of plastic in more than half the species sampled, with a seemingly equal distribution across locations and even dietary habits."Much is known about the impact of plastic on aquatic ecosystems, but very little is known about the same with terrestrial…

The lepidopteran Galleria mellonella worm species is able to quickly break down polyethylene through the use of its saliva.A CSIC research team found that wax worm saliva contains enzymes that can initiate polyethylene degradation in a short period of timeA CSIC research team has found that wax worm saliva degrades plastic. The discovery has numerous potential applications for treating or recycling plastic waste. The team first discovered that this worm species, the lepidopteran Galleria mellonella, can degrade plastic…

Source: AD Plastik website Croatian car parts maker AD Plastik said on Thursday it hds signed several new contracts for the European Union market with Dutch-based automaker Stellantis, which are expected to contribute EUR85.9 million (US$90 million) in revenue. The estimated duration of the deals is nine years, the company said in a filing with the Zagreb bourse, according to SeeNews.com. It also…