Plastic Archives

Environment

Could Hawaii Become the First State to Ban Styrofoam Food Containers?

The state is moving to reduce plastic pollution by implementing a groundbreaking ban on polystyrene containers that are commonly used throughout the island in the food industry.

Erica Cirino

Smoking is banned as fire cycle-dependent chaparral vegetation returns to life two-and-a-half months after a wildfire past through part of Griffith Park, in Los Angeles, California.

News in Brief

How the Intolerable Becomes Acceptable

New evidence of our strong psychological need to rationalize the status quo.

Tom Jacobs

Environment

Our Plastic Waste Is Destroying the World’s Coral Reefs

New research shows the extent to which our dependence on plastic is infecting, damaging, and killing coral reefs from Thailand to Australia.

Todd Woody

Environment

Almost All of the Plastic Produced Since 1950 Is Still Sitting in Landfills

The man-made material basically never breaks down, but we keep making more and more of it.

Kate Wheeling

Environment

A Better Way to Clean Up Ocean-Polluting Plastics

Hint: Don't go after the Great Pacific garbage patch—which, by the way, isn't really a patch at all.

Nathan Collins

Environment

Consumers Love Squeezable Plastic Pouches for Food—Too Bad Recyclers Hate Them

Plastic-pouch food packaging is showing up everywhere—except at recycling facilities.

Elizabeth Royte

Environment

Are Microbeads About to Become a Thing of the Past?

The House voted this week to ban microbeads. This is a demonstrably good thing.

Madeleine Thomas

Environment

How Plastic Imperils Sea Turtles

A new research review finds that all the plastic debris swirling through our oceans may be endangering every species of sea turtle.

Kate Wheeling

Environment

Now We’ve Found Plastics in Space (and It’s Not Pollution)

For the first time ever, molecules of plastic have been found outside of planet Earth.

Michael Todd

Environment

Paying It Forward

You make it, you pay. Why should taxpayers foot the bill for recycling all of that wasteful plastic?

Elizabeth Royte