Can plastic-eating bacteria help cut down on pollution?

Oct 26, 2020
British and American researchers have developed a “super-enzyme” to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of recycling of plastic waste.
Municipal workers clear plastic from a canal in Bangkok in June.
Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images

Artist turns thousands of plastic bags into Times Square public art project

Oct 26, 2020
The pop-up "store" is filled with handcrafted items made from single-use plastic bags.
Artist Robin Frohardt stands outside her Times Square immersive art exhibit, "The Plastic Bag Store."
Maria Baranova/Courtesy of Times Square Arts

China makes audacious promise of aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060

Sep 25, 2020
How will the world's most populous country and its worst polluter get there?
Employees work on a floating solar power plant in Huainan, a former coal-mining region, in China's eastern Anhui province in 2017.
AFP via Getty Images

Eliminating the concept of waste from the economy

Aug 19, 2020
For architect William McDonough, an economy of the future is a "circular economy."
"If we're destroying the Earth, we have to ask ourselves, is this is our intention? And if it's not, perhaps we need a new design," architect William McDonough says.
David McNew/Getty Images

Cities are piloting e-bike programs in a bid to reduce delivery truck traffic

Nov 21, 2019
Montreal and Oslo are aiming to alleviate truck traffic and pollution.
A driver cycles on a tricycle delivery vehicle to deliver packages for UPS in the rain in 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The two-decade legal battle with DuPont over a toxic chemical

Oct 15, 2019
In 2017, DuPont settled more than 3,500 personal injury lawsuits for roughly $670 million. The story is being turned into a movie.
Bridges spanning across the Ohio River are seen between West Virginia and Ohio, seen from Parkersburg, West Virginia, where the chemical PFOA leeched into the water supply.
Ivan Couronne/AFP/Getty Images

Cities pledge to lower climate change emissions

Oct 10, 2019
And they’ll look to do it without major budget impacts, because there’s no dedicated “city climate change fund.”
Los Angeles Mayor and Chair of C-40 Eric Garcetti is trying to strike a "Global Green New Deal" to lower emissions. Above, a layer of pollution hovering over L.A. in late 2017.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

The single-use plastic pollution problem

Apr 22, 2019
This Earth Day, let’s do the numbers on single-plastic use.
This photo taken on May 12, 2018 shows a dog on a garbage-filled creek in Manila.
NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images

EPA poised to roll back what waterways are protected

Dec 11, 2018
The Trump administration is set to release a plan that would redefine which bodies of water are protected by the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The Trump administration is set to release a plan that would redefine which bodies of water are protected by the 1972 Clean Water Act. 
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images