Hazardous Waste News

May 9, 2025

Top Headlines

Metals and Hormone-Disrupting Substances Pose Real Threat to Sustainable Agriculture and Water Management in Europe

May 9, 2025 — Metals and hormone-disrupting substances such as estrogens present a genuine risk to the sustainability of agriculture and water management in Europe. This research provides new insights into the ...

Machine Learning Powers New Approach to Detecting Soil Contaminants

May 9, 2025 — A team of researchers has developed a new strategy for identifying hazardous pollutants in soil -- even ones that have never been isolated or studied in a ...

Ultrasound Unlocks a Safer, Greener Way to Make Hydrogels

May 9, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new way to create hydrogels using ultrasound, eliminating the need for toxic chemical initiators. This breakthrough offers a faster, cleaner and more sustainable approach to hydrogel fabrication, and produces hydrogels ...

Urine, Not Water for Efficient Production of Green Hydrogen

May 9, 2025 — Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen. The unique systems reveal new pathways to economically generate 'green' hydrogen, a sustainable and ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:50pm EDT

Sulfur Runoff Amplifies Mercury Concentrations in Florida Everglades

May 8, 2025 — Sulfur from sugarcane crops is flowing into wetlands in the Florida Everglades, creating toxic methylmercury, which accumulates in fish, a new study ...

Study of Türkiye Gold Mine Landslide Highlights Need for Future Monitoring

May 8, 2025 — A new analysis of a fatal landslide that occurred on 13 February 2024 at the pler Gold Mine in Turkiye reveals that the site of the landslide had been slowly moving for at least four years prior to ...

Mercury Levels in the Atmosphere Have Decreased Throughout the 21st Century

May 8, 2025 — Mercury is released by environmental and human-driven processes. And some forms, specifically methylmercury, are toxic to humans. Therefore, policies and regulations to limit mercury emissions have ...

Eco-Friendly Aquatic Robot Is Made from Fish Food

May 8, 2025 — An edible robot leverages a combination of biodegradable fuel and surface tension to zip around the water's surface, creating a safe -- and nutritious -- alternative to environmental monitoring ...

New Roadmap Advances Catalytic Solutions to Destroy 'Forever Chemicals'

May 7, 2025 — Researchers have outlined a bold new roadmap for harnessing heterogeneous catalysis to destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the so-called 'forever chemicals' that have contaminated ...

Feat of 'Dung-Gineering' Turns Cow Manure Into One of World's Most Used Materials

May 7, 2025 — A new technique to extract tiny cellulose strands from cow dung and turn them into manufacturing-grade cellulose, currently used to make everything ...

Is Virtual-Only Couture the New Clothing Craze?

May 7, 2025 — As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in ...

Scientists Discover a New Way to Convert Corn Waste Into Low-Cost Sugar for Biofuel

May 6, 2025 — Scientists have found a new way to produce sugar from corn stalks and other crop waste, potentially opening a new pathway to sustainable ...

Dangerous Synthetic Opioids and Animal Sedatives Found in Wastewater

Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have developed a highly sensitive method to detect illegal opioids and a veterinary sedative in Australia's wastewater system, providing a vital early warning tool to public health ...

'Wood You Believe It?' Engineers Fortify Wood With Eco-Friendly Nano-Iron

Apr. 28, 2025 — With more than 181.5 billion tons of wood produced globally each year, a new method could revolutionize how we build sustainably. By infusing red oak with ferrihydrite using a simple, low-cost ...

Oil Cleanup Agents Do Not Impede Natural Biodegradation

Apr. 22, 2025 — Biodegradation is an important natural process during oil spill cleanup. A new study revealed that using spill treating agents does not negatively impact naturally occurring ...

Harmful Microplastics Infiltrating Drinking Water

Apr. 21, 2025 — Despite advances in wastewater treatment, tiny plastic particles called microplastics are still slipping through, posing potential health and environmental hazards, according to new ...

Making Desalination More Eco-Friendly: New Membranes Could Help Eliminate Brine Waste

Apr. 15, 2025 — Desalination plants, a major and growing source of freshwater in dry regions, could produce less harmful waste using electricity and new ...

New Method for Detecting Nanoplastics in Body Fluids

Apr. 14, 2025 — Microplastics and the much smaller nanoplastics enter the human body in various ways, for example through food or the air we breathe. A large proportion is excreted, but a certain amount remains in ...

Global EV Adoption Fails to Cut CO2

Apr. 10, 2025 — The transition to electric vehicles won't reduce carbon emissions unless countries clean up their electricity ...

Man's Best Friend May Be Nature's Worst Enemy, Study on Pet Dogs Suggests

Apr. 10, 2025 — New research into the overlooked environmental impact of pet dogs has found far-reaching negative effects on wildlife, ecosystems and ...

Bio-Oils for Greener Industrial Applications

Apr. 9, 2025 — New technology could enable more sustainable and cheaper production of bio-oils to replace petroleum-based products in electronic, construction and automotive applications. The technology, known as ...

Potable Water Happy Byproduct of Low-Cost Green Hydrogen Technology

Apr. 9, 2025 — Engineers have hit the trifecta of sustainability technology: A group has developed a low-cost method to produce carbon-free 'green' hydrogen via solar-powered electrolysis of seawater. A ...

Tree Rings Track Atmospheric Mercury Cheaply

Apr. 9, 2025 — Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South, according to a new ...

Multi-Virus Wastewater Surveillance Shows Promise at Smaller, Site-Specific Scales

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a new study, wastewater surveillance for multiple pathogens at five different sites identified local trends that were not captured in larger surveillance programs, and some sites used the data to ...

Electrochemical Method Supports Nitrogen Circular Economy

Apr. 3, 2025 — Imagine a world where industrial waste isn't just reduced, it's turned into something useful. This kind of circular economy is already in the works for carbon. Now, researchers in energy, ...

Researchers Recycle Wind Turbine Blade Materials to Make Improved Plastics

Apr. 3, 2025 — A new method to recycle wind turbine blades without using harsh chemicals resulted in the recovery of high-strength glass fibers and resins that allowed researchers to re-purpose the materials to ...

Biodegradable Fake Fingernails Make Manicures More Sustainable

Apr. 2, 2025 — A new kind of press-on nails come in all shapes and colors -- and when you're done with them, you can melt them down and reuse the materials to make your next ...

Electrochemical Process Separates Valuable Industrial Chemicals from Animal Waste

Apr. 2, 2025 — A collaboration between chemical engineers and animal scientists has created a system for recovering valuable industrial chemicals from animal waste, representing a major step towards circularity and ...

Surprising Number of Environmental Pollutants in Hedgehogs

Apr. 1, 2025 — Lead, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, plastic additives, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and heavy metals. This is what researchers found when they collected dead hedgehogs to investigate ...

Scientists Pioneer Method to Tackle 'Forever Chemicals'

Mar. 31, 2025 — Researchers have developed an innovative solution to a pressing environmental challenge: removing and destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly called 'forever ...

New Approach Makes One Type of Clean Fuel Production 66% More Efficient

Mar. 28, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered a more efficient way to turn carbon dioxide into methanol, a type of alcohol that can serve as a cleaner alternative ...

A Cleaner Future for Tires: Scientists Pioneer Chemical Process to Repurpose Rubber Waste

Mar. 26, 2025 — Every year, millions of tires end up in landfills, creating an environmental crisis with far-reaching consequences. In the United States alone, over 274 million tires were scrapped in 2021, with ...

Cleaning Microplastics

Mar. 26, 2025 — Proof-of-concept work uses unique, safe particles to remove microplastics in a single ...

Effect of Sulfur Composition on Tin Sulfide for Improving Solar Cell Performance

Mar. 25, 2025 — Researchers investigated different compositions of tin sulfides to find the ideal material for devices that harness solar ...