Author: Plastics-Free Initiative

A sick bear in Telluride, Colorado, was euthanized by authorities — and upon a necropsy, they discovered that the animal had suffered for months due to plastic waste blocking its digestive system.

It may seem daunting to change the way we celebrate a beloved holiday. It may also be necessary. Every parent of young children has awoken on Nov. 1 to the aftermath of Halloween: piles of candy wrappers, discarded costumes, molding pumpkins and decorations demanding to be taken down.

Bioplastics called PHAs grow like beer and biodegrade like wood. And they may be able to help with our plastic waste problem.

That symbol of “chasing arrows” you find on plastic does NOT mean it can be recycled. What we often call “recycling numbers” are actually “resin identification numbers” – meaning they tell you what kind of plastic you are dealing with. And this symbol was designed this way on purpose by the big plastic corporations, to give us the sense all plastic could be recycled. Which is of course not true.

Since the late 1930s, sperm counts around the world appear to have dropped significantly. While the decline was initially observed in western countries, there is evidence of the same phenomenon in the developing world, and it seems to be accelerating. Swan, a Berkeley-trained statistician-turned-epidemiologist, believes she knows why.

The standards would force states to begin the arduous process of cleaning out ‘forever chemicals’ from their water supplies.

More than 170 trillion plastic particles weighing roughly 2 million metric tons are afloat in the world’s oceans, according to new research.