Recycling and Waste News

February 10, 2025

Top Headlines

Partnership Working Key to Unlocking EV Battery Recycling Problem

Feb. 4, 2025 — Recyclers, battery manufacturers, and electric vehicle manufacturers must work together to revolutionize lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling processes to meet ever-growing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage ...

Tiny Copper 'Flowers' Bloom on Artificial Leaves for Clean Fuel Production

Feb. 3, 2025 — Tiny copper 'nano-flowers' have been attached to an artificial leaf to produce clean fuels and chemicals that are the backbone of modern energy and ...

Building a Circular Future: Study Reveals Key Organizational Capabilities for Sustainability

Feb. 3, 2025 — A recent study by management scholars underscores the importance of organizations' dynamic capabilities for greener business practices. Analyzing data from 139 manufacturing companies, the research ...

Recycling Lithium-Ion Batteries Cuts Emissions and Strengthens Supply Chain

Jan. 31, 2025 — Researchers compared the environmental impacts of lithium-ion battery recycling to mining for new materials and found that recycling significantly outperforms mining in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and energy ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:18pm EST

Groundwater in Arctic Is Delivering More Carbon Into the Ocean Than Was Previously Known

Jan. 30, 2025 — A relatively small amount of groundwater trickling through Alaska's tundra is releasing huge quantities of carbon into the ocean, where it can ...

Optical Fiber Sensor Provides Simple and Sensitive Detection of Arsenic in Drinking Water

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new optical sensor that provides a simple way to achieve real-time detection of extremely low levels of arsenic in ...

Green Phosphonate Chemistry -- Does It Exist?

Jan. 29, 2025 — Phosphorus is a critical raw material that should be recycled more efficiently. There is also a need for more environmentally friendly production methods for organic phosphorus compounds. A recently ...

Chemical Looping Turns Environmental Waste Into Fuel

Jan. 29, 2025 — Turning environmental waste into useful chemical resources could solve many of the inevitable challenges of our growing amounts of discarded plastics, paper and food waste, according to new ...

Common Plastic Pigment Promotes Depolymerization

Jan. 29, 2025 — This startling mechanism for promoting depolymerization relies on an additive that many plastics already contain: a pigment called carbon black that gives plastic its black color. Through a process ...

Research Leads to Viable Solution for Polycotton Textile Waste Recycling

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers present a solution to the challenging problem of recycling poly-cotton textile waste. The process starts with fully removing all cotton from the fabric using superconcentrated ...

Plant-Based Substitute for Fossil Fuels Developed for Plastic Foams

Jan. 28, 2025 — An environmentally-friendly preparation of plant material from pine could serve as a substitute for petroleum-based chemicals in polyurethane foams. The innovation could lead to more environmentally ...

Floating Solar Increases Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Small Ponds

Jan. 27, 2025 — While floating solar -- the emerging practice of putting solar panels on bodies of water -- is promising in its efficiency and its potential to spare agricultural and conservation lands, a new ...

New Weapon Against Harmful Algal Blooms

Jan. 27, 2025 — Effective management of phosphorus is needed to curb the rise of harmful algal blooms. Few studies have explored how algal biomass, especially blue-green algae, can be used to create materials that ...

Bacteria Found to Eat Forever Chemicals -- And Even Some of Their Toxic Byproducts

Jan. 23, 2025 — A team has identified a strain of bacteria that can break down and transform at least three types of PFAS, and, perhaps even more crucially, some of ...

The Importance of Eco-Friendly Sensors in Global Food Supply

Jan. 21, 2025 — Researchers present paper-based temperature and humidity sensors that are accurate, reliable, and eco-friendly. The team created the sensors by printing silver lines on commercially available paper ...

Robots Should Be Repurposed Rather Than Recycled to Combat Rising Scale of E-Waste, Scientists Warn

Jan. 16, 2025 — The robotics industry should be creating robots that could be reprogrammed and repurposed for other tasks once its life span is completed, researchers have ...

Biochar Reduces the Risks of DDT-Contaminated Soil

Jan. 16, 2025 — DDT soil pollution is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Researchers have developed a new method to manage ecological risks from the toxin by binding it with biochar. When they mixed ...

Beach Guardians: How Hidden Microbes Protect Coastal Waters in a Changing Climate

Jan. 14, 2025 — Beneath sandy beaches, microbes filter chemicals from groundwater and safeguard ocean health. A new study reveals that sneaker waves provide a lens to explore the impending impacts of sea level rise ...

Direct Discharge Electrical Pulses for Carbon Fiber Recycling

Jan. 14, 2025 — Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are used in the aerospace, automotive, and sports equipment industries. However, their recycling remains a major problem. In a recent study, researchers ...

Researchers Unveil 'Surprising' Breakthrough in Carbon Nanotube Recycling, Paving Way for Sustainable Materials

Jan. 13, 2025 — In a significant step toward creating a sustainable and circular economy, researchers have demonstrated that carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers can be fully recycled without any loss in their structure or ...

From Microplastics to Macro-Impact: Plastic Recycling Challenges

Jan. 13, 2025 — The use of plastic has skyrocketed over the past decade. Recent statistics reveal that in 2021, each person in the European Union (EU) generated an average of 36 kg of plastic packaging ...

States Struggle to Curb Food Waste Despite Policies

Jan. 9, 2025 — Current state policies aren't enough to curb food waste. Study shows states are falling short of the reduction goals set by the U.S. Environmental Protection ...

Trash to Treasure: Leveraging Industrial Waste to Store Energy

Jan. 7, 2025 — As more products begin to depend on battery-based energy storage systems, shifting away from metal-based solutions will be critical to facilitating the green energy transition. Now, a team has ...

Method Can Detect Harmful Salts Forming in Nuclear Waste Melters

Jan. 7, 2025 — A new way to identify salts in nuclear waste melters could help improve clean-up technology, including at the Hanford Site, one of the largest, most complex nuclear waste clean-up sites in the world. ...

U.S. Corn Belt: Intensive Farming and Shallow Groundwater Affect Precipitation Patterns

Jan. 6, 2025 — New research shows that the sweeping land use changes and irrigation of the U.S. Corn Belt, along with the influence of the area's shallow groundwater, have significantly altered precipitation ...

Big Leap Forward for Environmentally Friendly 'E-Textiles' Technology

Jan. 2, 2025 — A research team has shown wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) can be both sustainable and ...

New Method Turns E-Waste to Gold

Jan. 2, 2025 — A research team has developed a method for extracting gold from electronics waste, then using the recovered precious metal as a catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, to ...

Construction Materials and Household Items Are a Part of a Long-Term Carbon Sink Called the 'Technosphere'

Dec. 20, 2024 — We know a lot about how much fossil-derived carbon is emitted to the atmosphere but less about how much is stored in human-made products. Ecological economists estimate that each year, humans add ...

Study Uses Remote Sensing to Monitor Plastic Debris in Rivers and Lakes

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study shows how remote sensing can help monitor and remove plastic debris from freshwater environments like the Mississippi ...

Microplastics in the Air May Be Leading to Lung and Colon Cancers

Dec. 18, 2024 — Tires and degrading garbage shed tiny pieces of plastic into the air, creating a form of air pollution that researchers suspect may be causing respiratory and other ...

Making the Most of Switzerland's Wood

Dec. 16, 2024 — Sustainable, renewable and good for the climate: Wood is the material of the future. But how much of it do we actually have and how do we make best use of it? Researchers have now analyzed the ...

Researchers Reveal Key Factors Behind Japan's Plastic Waste Removal Rates in Rivers

Dec. 12, 2024 — Plastic pollution is a growing problem in Japan, prompting cleanup efforts to recover plastic litter from water bodies. However, research on recovery rates from different river basins remains ...

Recycling Human, Animal Excreta Reduces Need for Fertilizers

Dec. 11, 2024 — Recycling all the human and livestock feces and urine on the planet would contribute substantially to meeting the nutrient supply for all crops worldwide, thereby reducing the need to mine ...

A Greener, Cleaner Way to Extract Cobalt from 'Junk' Materials

Dec. 10, 2024 — As the demand for lithium-ion batteries escalates with the proliferation of mobile phone, electric vehicles and even pacemakers, key components in these powerhouses, like cobalt, face significant ...