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Five Trillion Pieces Of Plastic Are Floating In An Ocean Near You [Interactive]
Once And Future Ocean Plastic This map combines two new models. One model shows where plastic goes. By sampling water at nearly 1,600 spots and combining that data with an ocean circulation model, one...
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Plastic Waste Could Fuel Your Car One Day
At a factory in Almeria, on the southern coast of Spain, Michael Murray, the CEO of the technology company Cynar, makes an impressive demonstration. A video on Cynar’s website shows him filling a...
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Robots Are Coming For The Garbageman’s Job
As long as there are humans, there will be garbage. And, for a long time, it seemed inevitable that there would always be garbagemen, too, to collect that refuse. A new project by carmaker Volvo,...
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Flexible Medical Sensors Made From Chewing Gum
Chewing gum on your shoe? Annoying. Chewing gum as a medical device? Pretty cool. As detailed in a paper published last month in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces researchers have discovered they...
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An Orbiting Garbage Collector That Eats Space Junk To Fuel Itself
An artist's impression of space debris in low-Earth orbit. The U.S. government wants a better surveillance system to keep track of the thousands of space junk pieces. ESA Space junk–both manufactured...
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Storks Are Changing Migration Patterns To Lunch At Landfills
One man’s trash is another bird’s opportunity. In a paper published in Science Advances, researchers found that some populations of white storks in Europe were changing their migration patterns to...
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Trashed electronics are piling up across Asia
Every year, humans produce millions of tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, which leaches toxic materials into landfills across the globe. And gadget-loving Americans aren’t the only culprits. A new...
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This remote island in the South Pacific is covered in 18 tons of our trash
Traveling by ship, it takes about 13 days to reach Henderson Island from New Zealand. Hidden in the South Pacific, 3000 miles from anywhere, this UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Pitcairns is “one of...
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Humans have created 9.1 billion tons of plastic. Here’s how you can help stop...
Humanity has manufactured a lot of plastic since the 1950s, and most of it ends up in landfills or nature. panaramka.ukr.net No matter how many times I tell my local Thai restaurant that I don’t want...
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Guess how many giant patches of garbage there are in the ocean now?
Plastic pollution doesn’t just dirty beaches—its effects can be felt throughout the ecosystem. “We are living in a plastic age,” Captain Charles Moore tells PopSci. “We’re ignorant of its dangers, and...
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Hold onto your butts: Don’t let dogs get stoned on your leftover weed
Each morning, podcaster Paul Bae tries to explore a new trail in his nature-rich community in Vancouver. He lets his three pups off leash and turns on a podcast for himself. As they walk, Bae listens...
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Seagulls are eating all of our garbage
Seagulls are pretty intrepid scavengers. They have no qualms about sifting through our dumps and landfills for scraps of food. But this buffet comes at a cost, indicates a study published December 27...
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The grease recycling industry feeds on your city’s oily underbelly
Fat spots on a frying pan. Texture or background. stas Every January, fat’s in the crosshairs of health columnists, fitness magazines, and desperate Americans. This year, PopSci looks at the...
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The great Pacific garbage patch is even trashier than we thought
Plastic is everywhere, from our homes and everyday lives all the way up to the illusorily pristine Arctic. The oceans are no exception—our high seas are accumulating plastic just as fast as we can...
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Scientists stumbled upon a plastic-eating bacterium—then accidentally made it...
The natural world is rapidly becoming a giant pile of plastic waste. There are literally six—six!—ungodly large garbage patches swelling in the ocean. Even areas as far removed from us as the Arctic...
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Anyone can compost their food waste (and everyone should)
A surprising number of trash can be placed in a compost. Deposit Photos When we think of composting, we tend to think of enormous dumpsters full of everything you didn’t eat for dinner that day,...
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Eleven easy ways you can help save the planet this Earth Day
Back in 2016, Gina McCarthy—the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency at the time—sat down with PopSci to talk about why Earth Day still matters. When the holiday first took place on...
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You throw out 44 pounds of electronic waste a year. Here’s how to keep it out...
Don't just throw your gadgets away. Depositphotos Technology is advancing faster than it breaks, which means we’re upgrading our devices—and getting rid of our old gadgets—more often than ever. In...
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Plastic junk spews greenhouse gases, just like cows and cars
By now, you’ve probably heard that microplastics—that’s tiny bits of broken-down plastic—are wreaking havoc in the environment and spreading to even the most remote corners of the Earth. But a new...
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Your regular reminder that humans still waste way too much food
According to a study published recently in Appetite, young adults tend to waste a lot of food—and the reason seems to be that they have no idea they should try not to waste food. “Many said these...
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We trained crows to pick up garbage, but can we teach ourselves?
As you enter Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in Les Epesses, France, you might come across a curious new attraction: crows collecting trash in exchange for treats. No, the birds aren’t the park’s...
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14 things you should never flush down the toilet
Not a garbage can. Filios Sazeides via Unsplash .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container...
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How to actually recycle
Deposit Photos We’re having a bit of a recycling crisis. Last week, officials in India announced that the country would no longer accept post-consumer plastic imports, in an effort to fight the...
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How to keep raccoons and possums away from your house
Major cities are being overrun by raccoons, but the “trash panda” isn’t the only invader. As opossums, skunks, and other furry pests make homes in our neighborhoods, it’s important to know how we can...
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Inside the global fight over a 2,500-ton heap of garbage
Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, made global headlines last week when he threatened to “declare war” on Canada over some 2,500 tons of trash shipped to Manila in 2013 and 2014. The 103...
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We waste 40 percent of the food we grow—here’s where it goes
The chow we chuck. Valerio Pellegrini Only 60 percent of the food we grow in the United States makes it into our mouths. The rest drops out of the supply chain, bit by bit, as grub wends its way to...
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Scientists are making progress with better plastic-eating bacteria
Ideonella sakaiensis is just one organism that can use plastic as fuel. Brian Klutch Molecular biologist Christopher Johnson was schmoozing at a party not long ago, talking with another guest about...
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Money, shoes, poop, and other highlights from the 796 items we’ve left on the...
Data from the NASA Catalogue of Manmade Material on the Moon. Infographic by Sara Chodosh .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; }...
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Where to find cardboard boxes when you’re moving
Moving day approaches. You’ve got to start packing. But odds are, you don’t have enough boxes, storage containers, and assorted bags lying around to transport everything you own. Sure, you could buy a...
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Products to reduce the amount of garbage in your life
We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › The average American generates about 4.5 pounds of trash every single day. What’s more,...
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Your guide to a Thanksgiving dinner without food waste
Even if you’ve spent the entire year cutting down on plastic, eating less red meat, and conserving water, you’re probably poised to have a wasteful Thanksgiving. It’s the nature of the holiday. We eat...
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Once you know what happens to food you leave outdoors, you’ll stop doing it
This apple does not belong here, as natural as it may seem. Sabina Music Rich/Unsplash You’re out on a hike, or maybe cruising down a country road, snacking on an apple, a banana, or a handful of...
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Will we ever be able to recycle all our plastic?
Some forms of waste are just too costly to recycle. Nick Fewings/Unsplash We’re losing the war against waste. Although many Americans reflexively use recycling bins, less than one-third of plastics...
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Ask Us Anything: Why can’t we burn our trash in volcanoes?
Katie Belloff/Popular Science Is your head constantly spinning with outlandish, mind-burning questions? If you’ve ever wondered what the universe is made of, what would happen if you fell into a black...
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Meet the matchmaker pairing commercial waste with companies ready to reuse it
Colorado-based RepurposedMaterials helps turn commercial trash into reused treasure. BkCory via Deposit Photos / Courtesy RepurposedMaterials DAMON CARSON has one of the more interesting inboxes in...
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Adding enzymes to bioplastics can make them disappear
Plastic waste is a huge problem, especially because traditional plastics take years and years to break down. Karolina Grabowska from Pexels With so many different plastics entering the waterways that...
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Why don’t we just throw all our garbage into volcanoes?
Lava breaks through the cooling crust to continue the formation of a new tributary. Most shield volcanoes, including Kilauea, erupt low-silicon basalt, which results in a more fluid lava. Photo...
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Masses Of Vultures In Cities Pose A Threat To Aircraft
Black vultures (Coragyps atratus) congregate around a dumpster in Manaus, Brazil It’s a classic image of the end: a parched, starving, or injured individual crawling in desperation in the last throes...
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Your compostable cups and containers aren’t reversing the plastic problem
In the quest to avoid plastic trash like the above, PLA cups and containers have become commonplace. But compostable single-use items might not be much better for the environment. Filmbetrachter It...
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How to keep food, plastic, and fabric out of the landfill
Composting is a great way to reuse food scraps. Eva Elijas / Pexels Waste production has become a huge issue. The US Environmental Protection Agency says industrial waste “is often a significant...
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What do the numbers on plastic mean? And 3 other trashy questions, answered.
There are a lot of feel-good terms related to recycling, but it can be hard to know what they actually mean. Sigmund / Unsplash Plastic is everywhere. We wear it, sleep on it, drive around in it, and...
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Make natural fabric dye with vegetable scraps
You don't have to set the jars outside, but we thought they looked nice. Natalie Wallington Before the dawn of synthetic dyes, all fabric was colored with natural pigments. Today, you can continue...
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How to keep fat bears (and other bears) out of your trash
Bears will eat their fill of your garbage and feel no remorse. Daniele Levis Pelusi / Unsplash As the weather turns cooler, many of us are thinking ahead to the long winter months we’ll spend bundled...
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Humans created an extra 8 million tons of plastic waste during the pandemic
Researchers say we need to find better ways of recycling our pandemic trash. Unsplash The COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in demand for disposable plastics that has resulted in more than 25,000 tons...
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DARPA’s solution to the military’s plastic trash problem? Eat it.
A burn pit for trash in Afghanistan in 2012. Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez An army marches on its stomach, and leaves trash in its wake. Before combat can even begin, militaries start generating waste....
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4 simple ways to reduce holiday waste
Trim down on waste by sending paper holiday cards that don't have glitter or other non-recyclable fixings. Annie Spratt/Unsplash This post has been updated. It was originally published on December 24,...
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How to go zero-waste at the grocery store
You don't even have to buy fancy eco-friendly bags to start. Markus Spiske / Unsplash The idea of an existence free from single-use plastic is intoxicating. Sometimes it even seems imperative, what...
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A close look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch reveals a common culprit
Fishery plastic was extracted by nonprofit organization, the Ocean Cleanup. This was found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch along with many crates and buoys originating from fishing activities. The...
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Travel more sustainably with a DIY zero-waste toiletry kit
Products with no packaging like soap, shampoo, and conditioner bars are a great addition to your toiletry kit. Igishevamaria / Deposit Photos Those little bottles of travel-sized toiletries you bought...
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Look inside London’s new Super Sewer, an engineering marvel for rubbish and poo
When tunneling concluded in 2022, a composer, Rob Lewis, performed in the future sewer. Tideway There is an enormous and serpentine new concrete-lined tunnel beneath London. For most of its 15.5-mile...
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