Two-thirds of pledges to go greener on plastic fail or are dropped, a DW investigation has found. Here's how European food and drink companies break their own commitments, and how legislation might hold them accountable.

Story at a glance Plastic pollution is one of the more pressing issues for conservationists and environmentalists alike. Researchers in Sweden harvested a byproduct of plastic disposal and used it to create a new sustainable plastic. By incentivizing collection of this byproduct, experts hope to scale the process and create a more sustainable plastic recycling…

About 11 million tonnes of plastic waste flows into the ocean each year, the UN says.

Canada is banning companies from producing and importing a handful of single-use plastics by the end of the year, Reuters reports. Among the items the country won’t allow the production of include plastic shopping bags, takeout containers and six-pack rings for holding cans and bottles together.

Recycling in Maine, as in the rest of the country, has taken a double hit in recent years. In 2018, China stopped accepting the enormous quantities of US trash that used to provide raw materials for its factories. Suddenly, once profitable "recycling" (a lot of it was actually just offshoring) became a net cost that many communities could no longer afford. Then the pandemic accelerated the crisis with enormous amounts of packaging waste from online purchases.

The U.S. Interior Department, which helps oversee the country's national parks, says it is planning to phase out single-use plastics on its land and facilities by 2032. The agency would be tasked with finding alternative materials to disposable plastics, such as cutlery, bags, cups, bottles, straws and food containers, it announced Tuesday in honor of World Ocean Day.

Metals might be the foundation of the modern economy, but that doesn’t mean they stick around. A study looking at the economic lifetimes of 61 commercially used metals finds that more than half have a lifespan of less than 10 years. The research, published on 19 May in Nature Sustainability1, also shows that most of these metals end up being disposed of or lost in large quantities, rather than being recycled or reused.

The proliferation of digital devices has already become a big problem for the planet, but it’s still not receiving the attention it should. Once they come to the end of their useful lives, electronics just get discarded. The recycling rate is still poor, despite the fact they contain valuable minerals that could be used once more and have economic value. Now, scientists are calling to ramp up the recycling of e-waste, describing the expansion of mining as unsustainable.

A new report shows that U.S. plastic recycling rates have declined from about 8.7% to between 5% and 6%, revealing the challenges and shortcomings of the country’s waste management infrastructure and policies. Environmental organizations Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics issued the report, which found a decline in recycling rates since 2018, the last time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the rates. According to the report, per capita plastic waste generation has increased 263% since 1980, totaling 218 pounds of plastic waste per person as of 2018.

Plastic pollution is everywhere. It's showing up as microplastics that contaminate nearly everything and even in the stomachs of dead whales. This is because a lot of plastic is simply not biodegradable and has a very long lifespan.

Apple today released new details on the increased use of recycled content across its products. For the first time, the company introduced certified recycled gold, and more than doubled the use of recycled tungsten, rare earth elements, and cobalt. Nearly 20 percent of all material used in Apple products in 2021 was recycled, the highest-ever use of recycled content.

Back in the day, just about everything that used a battery had a hatch or a hutch that you could open to pull it out and replace it if need be. Whether it was a radio, a cordless phone, or a cellphone, it was a cinch to swap out a battery.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich have broken down plastic into its molecular building blocks, recovering 90% of them - and it could lead to a new way of using plastic.

World leaders will come together online and in Nairobi, Kenya, next week, in what is described as a “critical moment” in progress towards the first ever global treaty to combat plastic waste. Inger Andersen, director of the UN Environment Programme, said an agreement at the UN environment assembly could be the most important multilateral pact since the Paris climate accord in 2015.

Though we try our best to recycle the single-use plastic items we use daily, there are some plastics that take a lot more effort to reuse than just tossing them into the recycle bin. And because extra effort is needed, those plastics often end up in landfills. But one company is hoping to change the fate of hard-to-recycle plastic for good.

Three in four people worldwide want single-use plastics to be banned as soon as possible, according to a poll released on Tuesday, as United Nations members prepare to begin talks on a global treaty to rein in soaring plastic pollution.

Researchers are going to find out.

After years of R&D, startup ByFusion is processing 450 tons of plastic a year—with the goal of reaching 100 million tons by 2030.

Wrapping paper doesn't make sense, even if you reuse it or recycle it. So, how's a gift giver to keep the element of surprise? Here are a few eco-friendly ideas.

As part of the company’s goal to become fully circular, it needs to work to eliminate the 10% of its packaging that still uses plastic.