A new "living plastic" may point to a possible answer for a stubborn waste problem: disposable materials that outlast their usefulness by centuries. In experiments, researchers made a version that ...

Proof-of-concept tests found that the plastic did such a good job at eating itself apart, not even microplastics had a chance. Reading time 2 minutes Plastic pollution doesn’t seem to be getting ...

A new kind of "living plastic" developed by scientists in China could help address how some materials last far longer than the products they make up. Instead of lingering for years, this plastic can ...

Many plastic products are designed to be used only once, yet the material itself lasts for years. But a new strategy is addressing this problem by creating products that self-destruct on command, ...

Americans, on average, toss out about three quarters of a pound of plastic each day, according to researchers at Oxford University. Most of that trash winds up in a landfill. As someone who loves ...

Living things degrade, die, and decompose. Even when we turn plant and animal material into furniture or clothes, the process is inevitable. On the other hand, left alone, plastics are practically ...

Researchers have created self-destructing living plastic that uses engineered bacteria to completely break itself down when ...

In brief: Plastic that can breaks itself down when no longer needed sounds like something from sci-fi, but Chinese scientists have moved the idea closer to reality. Their prototype embeds dormant ...