plastic

A New York City bill — dubbed “Pods Are Plastic” — proposes a ban on dishwashing and laundry detergent pods coated in PVA, a type of plastic that disintegrates when submerged in water.

A person picks up trash in a landfill. A new analysis finds lower-income countries pay eight times more for plastic’s social and environmental impacts.

A Federal Court decision that quashed the legal foundations of Canada's plastic regulations might not spell the end of the government's efforts to tackle the plastic pollution problem, observers say.

In March 2022, 175 countries agreed to write a global treaty to address the plastic pollution crisis. Now, a year and a half later, they have a rough draft.

A UN treaty to reduce plastic pollution could be a game changer for the environment. Activists who collect plastic for a living want to make sure it takes their jobs into account.

Researchers sampled 19 strains of bacteria and 15 of fungi growing on free-lying or intentionally buried plastic kept in the ground for one year in Greenland, Svalbard and Switzerland in a potential breakthrough for recycling.

High-income countries have long sent their waste abroad to be thrown away or recycled — and an independent team of experts says they’re inundating the developing world with much more plastic than previously estimated.

Chemicals that leach out of plastic are shown to cause fatal abnormalities, including a gut developing outside the body.

Richard Kirby, a marine biologist based in Plymouth, England, was looking at zooplankton wriggling under a microscope when he spotted something else: shreds of plastic pieces interlaced with the tiny creatures.

Ottawa's ban on a handful of single-use plastic items is cause for celebration, but bigger changes are required from government and consumers to stem plastic waste, especially at Christmas, a pollution expert says.

Canada's ban on the manufacture and import for sale of some plastic items, including grocery bags and straws, has taken effect.

When Zhanyun Wang was a kid, his mother told him to avoid the sweet-smelling gases that sometimes drifted across his neighbourhood near Shanghai from nearby plastic factories. Anything that smelled "really nice," the now-researcher at the University of Zurich explained, was "probably very toxic."

Blue whales consume up to one billion particles over a feeding season with as-yet-unknown impacts on their health.

Alberta has sided with a coalition of major plastic producers suing to stop the federal government’s efforts to reduce plastic pollution. 

Canada has joined a global coalition of countries pushing for a proposed international treaty to tackle the world's plastic pollution crisis. Led by Norway and Rwanda, the group of 20 countries will push for rules to reduce plastic production and eliminate plastic pollution by 2040.