California’s proposal, which aims to reduce the massive amounts of plastic going into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, would require all packaging to be able to be recycled

Finding international studies on recycling may be easy, but crowning a champion is not. The trouble lies with how countries calculate recycling rates. A catchy sound bite, “Switzerland is the world champion of recycling” has been proclaimed over the years by the media, the recycling industry, and even government agencies promoting the country’s image abroad.

When curbside recycling caught on in the 1970s, it was mostly about cans, glass, cardboard and paper. That's how Donald Sanderson remembers it. Sanderson is 90 years old, an earnest man with a ready smile. Every Thursday in Woodbury, N.J., where he lives, he hauls a big blue recycling bin out to the curb. Recycling is close to his heart. "I guess you could say I'm the father of recycling," he says. "I don't know if that's good or bad."

Is there anything toxic masculinity can’t do? Protect the ozone, apparently. New research has found that one of the deterrents for going green among men is the fear of their sexual orientation coming under question, according to the journal Sex Roles.

Rare earth metals are used in solar panels and wind turbines—as well as electric cars and consumer electronics. We don't recycle them, and there's not enough to meet growing demand.

The U.S. is facing a recycling crisis that is burying cities and towns in tens of millions of tons of garbage a day. The problem began last year when China, the world’s largest recyclable processor, stopped accepting most American scrap plastic and cardboard due to contamination problems, and a glut of plastics overwhelming its own processing facilities. Historically, China recycled the bulk of U.S. waste.

Pushes to “recycle” plastics are one element of a massive industry-led effort to suppress meaningful efforts to reduce plastic waste.

In Germany, strict recycling laws are widely praised. But success masks a dark truth.

A projected surge in electric-vehicle sales means that researchers must think about conserving natural resources and addressing battery end-of-life issues

Yes, you should be recycling them.

Plastic waste litters cities, oceans and even the air. Largely overlooked is how making plastic affects the environment. Plastic is a big contributor to global warming. So are its alternatives.

They have pledged to help fix U.S. recycling, but for decades the companies have fought against “bottle bills,” which result in more bottles and cans being recycled but are costly for the industry.

Nestle has launched a new recyclable wrapper for a snack bar that it claims will degrade in a marine environment within six months. The YES! range will also be used on a high-speed packaging line in a "world-first" technological breakthrough.

A sign on an upside-down dumpster spelled the end of Pearl Pai’s long romance with plastics recycling. For years, Pai and her family generated almost no trash. She carefully washed, sorted and bagged hard-to-recycle items and drove them two towns over from her home in Berkeley, California, to the area’s best recycling center.

Of the hundreds of thousands of tubes of toothpaste sold in the U.S. each year, most end up in landfills. The tubes, which are usually made of a mix of materials including aluminum, aren’t accepted at typical recycling facilities. Colgate spent the last five years designing a new type of tube that can change that.

If you don’t clean your recycling, it can harm more than it helps. And that icon with the arrows is virtually meaningless

A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations

The year: 1994. The world wide web was born, Yahoo! and Amazon launched, the first Sony PlayStation hit the market and Forrest Gump topped the box office list. It proved a year of innovation, with a sharp focus on technology and engaging the masses.

Headlines about plastic-eating organisms belie tough, competitive road to development

It was once a shoreline buried by enough trash to render it invisible, warranting the unfortunate nickname “toilet bowl”. Now the Philippines' Manila Bay beach is unrecognisably clean compared with a few months ago, a transformation so sudden and extreme that it brought tears to the eyes of residents.