In 1950, global plastic production was about 2 million tons. It’s now about 400 million tons – an increase of nearly 20,000%. As a material, it has seemingly limitless potential. Plastic is ...

This article originally appeared on ProPublica. Last year, I became obsessed with a plastic cup. It was a small container that held diced fruit, the type thrown into lunch boxes. And it was the first ...

Picture this: a 21-year-old backyard scientist in Alabama, Julian Brown, sweeps away some dirt and leaves from his homemade solar- and generator-powered, 10-magnetron-powered pyrolysis microwave ...

Regulators have spent tens of millions subsidizing ‘advanced’ recycling facilities, which release carcinogens and give off more greenhouse gases than making plastic from crude oil. Last year, I became ...

During pyrolysis, the plastic polymers are broken down into smaller molecules, resulting in the production of liquid oil, fuel source gases such as methane, propane and butane, and char. Char is the ...

America has long had a plastic problem. It's an urgent question — what do we do with the 40 million tons of plastic waste we produce annually? One year of plastic waste is roughly enough to smother ...

Kevin A. Schug receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, ExxonMobil, and Weaver Consultants Group. He is affiliated with VUV Analytics, Inc. and ...