Plastics are synthetic or semi-synthetic materials made from polymers, which are long chains of molecules typically derived from petroleum, natural gas, or other organic sources. Plastics are ...

BPA, PET, HDPE. You’re trying to do the right thing by recycling, following health alerts and shopping wisely, but you’re not fluent in molecular chemistry. So how do you decipher exactly what it all ...

Recycling sounds great in principle (because it is), but a frustrating number of devils lurk in the details. For example, while some materials like aluminum can readily be melted down and turned right ...

Researchers at Wageningen University & Research have developed a new type of plastic that, according to materials theory, should not be able to exist. Its properties sit somewhere between those of ...

Berkeley Lab scientists have announced the development of a new plastic that can be recycled many times over again, including in different shapes and colors, without experiencing quality loss.

When you throw away a plastic container, how do you decide whether to toss it in the trash or into a recycling bin? If you find the choice puzzling, you’re not alone. A 2014 poll found that 65 percent ...

Starting with billions of molecules of monomer in a reactor, heat and pressure are applied in the presence of catalysts, causing one of the monomer double bonds to rearrange into two "half-bonds," one ...