Hazardous Waste News

January 18, 2026

Top Headlines

Microplastics Are Undermining the Ocean’s Power to Absorb Carbon

Jan. 17, 2026 Tiny plastic particles drifting through the oceans may be quietly weakening one of Earth’s most powerful climate defenses. New research suggests microplastics are disrupting marine life that helps oceans absorb carbon dioxide, while also releasing ...

Wildfires Are Polluting the Air Far More Than Thought

Jan. 7, 2026 Scientists have discovered that wildfires release far more air-polluting gases than previously estimated. Many of these hidden emissions can transform into fine particles that are dangerous to breathe. The study shows wildfire pollution rivals ...

Scientists Found a Dangerous Feedback Loop Accelerating Arctic Warming

Dec. 29, 2025 The Arctic is changing rapidly, and scientists have uncovered a powerful mix of natural and human-driven processes fueling that change. Cracks in sea ice release heat and pollutants that form clouds and speed up melting, while emissions from nearby ...

New Technology Eliminates “Forever Chemicals” with Record-breaking Speed and Efficiency

Dec. 25, 2025 A new eco-friendly technology can capture and destroy PFAS, the dangerous “forever chemicals” found worldwide in water. The material works hundreds to thousands of times faster and more ...

This Fish-inspired Filter Removes over 99% of Microplastics

Dec. 22, 2025 Washing machines release massive amounts of microplastics into the environment, mostly from worn clothing fibers. Researchers at the University of Bonn have developed a new, fish-inspired filter that removes over 99% of these particles without ...

A Surprising New Method Finally Makes Teflon Recyclable

Nov. 27, 2025 Researchers have discovered a low-energy way to recycle Teflon® by using mechanical motion and sodium metal. The process turns the notoriously durable plastic into sodium fluoride that can be reused directly in chemical manufacturing. This creates ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Deep Sea Hotspot Bursting with Life

Nov. 26, 2025 Beneath the waters off Papua New Guinea lies an extraordinary deep-sea environment where scorching hydrothermal vents and cool methane seeps coexist side by side — a pairing never before seen. This unusual chemistry fuels a vibrant oasis teeming ...

Microbes That Breathe Rust Could Help Save Earth’s Oceans

Nov. 9, 2025 Researchers from the University of Vienna discovered MISO bacteria that use iron minerals to oxidize toxic sulfide, creating energy and producing sulfate. This biological process reshapes how scientists understand global sulfur and iron cycles. By ...

Scientists Shocked as Birds Soaked in “Forever Chemicals” Still Thrive

Oct. 9, 2025 Tree swallows in polluted U.S. regions are accumulating high levels of “forever chemicals.” These durable pollutants, used in firefighting foams and consumer products, are found everywhere from soil to human blood. Surprisingly, researchers ...

Japan’s Hot Springs Hold Clues to the Origins of Life on Earth

Oct. 3, 2025 Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, which mimic the ancient oceans, to uncover how ...

Biochar’s Secret Power Could Change Clean Water Forever

Sep. 26, 2025 Scientists found that biochar doesn’t just capture pollutants, it actively destroys them using direct electron transfer. This newly recognized ability accounts for up to 40% of its cleaning power and remains effective through repeated use. The ...

Toxic Waste Could Become the Next Clean Energy Breakthrough

Sep. 26, 2025 Bio-tar, once seen as a toxic waste, can be transformed into bio-carbon with applications in clean energy and environmental protection. This innovation could reduce emissions, create profits, and solve a major bioenergy industry ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:57pm EST

A Deadly Chemical Frozen in Ice May Have Sparked Life on Earth

Jan. 16, 2026 Hydrogen cyanide, a toxic chemical, may have helped spark the chemistry that led to life. When frozen, it forms crystals with highly reactive surfaces that can drive unusual chemical reactions, even ...

Early Earth’s Sky May Have Created the First Ingredients for Life

Dec. 3, 2025 Researchers recreated conditions from billions of years ago and found that Earth’s young atmosphere could make key molecules linked to life. These sulfur-rich compounds, including certain amino ...

The Mystery of Volcanoes That Don’t Explode Finally Has an Answer

Nov. 22, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a long-missing piece of the volcanic puzzle: rising magma doesn’t just form explosive gas bubbles when pressure drops—it can do so simply by being sheared and ...

Scientists Uncover What Delayed Earth’s Oxygen Boom for a Billion Years

Nov. 2, 2025 Researchers uncovered that trace compounds like nickel and urea may have delayed Earth’s oxygenation for millions of years. Experiments mimicking early Earth revealed how their concentrations ...

New Simulation Reveals How Earth’s Magnetic Field First Sparked to Life

Oct. 12, 2025 Geophysicists have modeled how Earth’s magnetic field could form even when its core was fully liquid. By removing the effects of viscosity in their simulation, they revealed a self-sustaining ...

Why Alaska’s Salmon Streams Are Suddenly Bleeding Orange

Sep. 18, 2025 Warming Arctic permafrost is unlocking toxic metals, turning Alaska’s once-clear rivers into orange, acid-laced streams. The shift, eerily similar to mine pollution but entirely natural, threatens ...

Scientists Finally Solve the Mystery of Ghostly Halos on the Ocean Floor

Sep. 10, 2025 Barrels dumped off Southern California decades ago have been found leaking alkaline waste, not just DDT, leaving behind eerie white halos and transforming parts of the seafloor into toxic vents. The ...

Scientists Made Plastic That Eats Carbon

Sep. 5, 2025 A team of chemists has discovered how to transform PET plastic waste into BAETA, a material that captures CO2 with remarkable efficiency. Instead of ending up as microplastics in the environment, ...

A Simple Metal Could Solve the World’s Plastic Recycling Problem

Sep. 3, 2025 Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a groundbreaking nickel-based catalyst that could transform the way the world recycles plastic. Instead of requiring tedious sorting, the catalyst ...

Scientists Modeled Nuclear Winter—the Global Food Collapse Was Worse Than Expected

July 26, 2025 What would happen if a nuclear war triggered a climate-altering catastrophe? Researchers have modeled how such a scenario could devastate global corn ...

This Oat Discovery Could Change Your Breakfast—and the Future of Plant-Based Food

July 22, 2025 Scientists in Australia have uncovered the biological triggers behind oil production in oats, a discovery that could revolutionize how oats are processed and marketed. By using advanced imaging and ...

Fire Smoke Exposure Leaves Toxic Metals and Lasting Immune Changes

June 30, 2025 Smoke from wildfires and structural fires doesn t just irritate lungs it actually changes your immune system. Harvard scientists found that even healthy people exposed to smoke showed signs of immune ...

This Breakthrough Turns Old Tech Into Pure Gold — No Mercury, No Cyanide, Just Light and Salt

June 27, 2025 At Flinders University, scientists have cracked a cleaner and greener way to extract gold—not just from ore, but also from our mounting piles of e-waste. By using a compound normally found in pool ...

Passive Cooling Breakthrough Could Slash Data Center Energy Use

June 14, 2025 UC San Diego engineers have created a passive evaporative cooling membrane that could dramatically slash energy use in data centers. As demand for AI and cloud computing soars, traditional cooling ...

Toxic Tides: Centuries-Old Mercury Is Flooding the Arctic Food Chain

June 13, 2025 Despite falling global mercury emissions, mercury levels in Arctic wildlife continue to rise. A new study reveals that ocean currents are delivering legacy mercury pollution from distant regions like ...

Something More Toxic Than Gators Is Hiding in the Swamps

June 12, 2025 Mercury contamination is surfacing as a serious concern in parts of Georgia and South Carolina, particularly in regions like the Okefenokee Swamp. University of Georgia researchers found alarmingly ...

Forever Chemicals' Toxic Cousin: MCCPs Detected in U. S. Air for First Time

June 17, 2025 In a surprising twist during an air quality study in Oklahoma, researchers detected MCCPs an industrial pollutant never before measured in the Western Hemisphere's atmosphere. The team suspects ...

Researchers Develop Recyclable, Healable Electronics

June 2, 2025 Electronics often get thrown away after use because recycling them requires extensive work for little payoff. Researchers have now found a way to change the ...

Air-Quality Monitoring Underestimates Toxic Emissions to Salton Sea Communities, Study Finds

June 2, 2025 Researchers showed that hydrogen sulfide, which is associated with numerous health conditions, is emitted from California's largest lake at levels far higher and more frequently than previously ...

Predicting Underwater Landslides Before They Strike

May 30, 2025 A new method for predicting underwater landslides may improve the resilience of offshore ...

Waste to Foundation: Transforming Construction Waste Into High-Performance Material

May 29, 2025 In a major advancement for sustainable construction, scientists have created a cement-free soil solidifier from industrial waste. By combining Siding Cut Powder and activated by Earth Silica, an ...

Coastal Alaska Wolves Exposed to High Mercury Concentrations from Eating Sea Otters

May 28, 2025 Scientists show that wolves that are eating sea otters in Alaska have much higher concentrations of mercury than those eating other prey such as deer and ...

Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage and Delivery System for Next-Generation Aircraft

May 27, 2025 Researchers have designed a liquid hydrogen storage and delivery system that could help make zero-emission aviation a reality. Their work outlines a scalable, integrated system that addresses several ...

Just Add Iron: Researchers Develop a Clever Way to Remove Forever Chemicals from Water

May 27, 2025 Researchers find that iron powder, an inexpensive alternative to activated carbon, does a better job at filtering PFOS from water -- it's 26 times more ...

Cryo-Em Freezes the Funk: How Scientists Visualized a Pungent Protein

May 27, 2025 Most people have witnessed -- or rather smelled -- when a protein enzyme called sulfite reductase works its magic. This enzyme catalyzes the chemical reduction of sulfite to hydrogen sulfide. ...

A New Approach Could Fractionate Crude Oil Using Much Less Energy

May 22, 2025 Engineers developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size, an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil ...

Scientists Invent Breakthrough Device to Detect Airborne Signs of Disease

May 21, 2025 If you've ever sat waiting at the doctor's office to give a blood sample, you might have wished there was a way to find the same information without needles. But for all the medical ...

Fool's Gold: A Hidden Climate Stabilizer

May 21, 2025 Researchers look to extremes in the past to study how the system reacts to imbalances. They detail an overlooked mechanism for how the ocean can help stabilize massive releases of carbon into the ...

Clouding the Forecast: Study Reveals Why So Many Climate Models Are Wrong About the Rate of Arctic Warming

May 20, 2025 The Arctic is one of the coldest places on Earth, but in recent decades, the region has been rapidly warming, at a rate three to four times faster than the global average. However, current climate ...

Investment Risk for Energy Infrastructure Construction Is Highest for Nuclear Power Plants, Lowest for Solar

May 19, 2025 The average energy project costs 40% more than expected for construction and takes almost two years longer than planned, finds a new global study. One key insight: The investment risk is highest for ...