Chemicals News

Plastic has been found in the most unexpected places: in the deepest parts of the ocean, in the remote mountain air, in human blood. And now, it’s even been found…

The route connecting the provinces of Loja and Zamora Chinchipe in Ecuador is a series of roads surrounded by green, leafy and picturesque mountains. Near the city of Zamora, signs…

Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.

Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…

Ban Khao Mo, THAILAND — Standing in the house where she has lived since she was born 45 years ago, Premsinee Suntornthammathat points to the temple where her grandparents took…

Primates and other tropical wildlife are increasingly being exposed to pesticides pharmaceuticals, plastics, nanoparticles and other synthetic materials, but adverse impacts on these animals have been little studied.

In a letter published in the journal Science, a group of international scientists has called for a cap on the global production of new plastics in order to preserve human…

Sharing sunscreen with family and friends is part and parcel of any trip to the seaside. Now, researchers have discovered that the seagrass Posidonia oceanica also partakes, accumulating ultraviolet filters…

In late January, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo participated in the groundbreaking ceremony for a new, $2.1 billion coal gasification plant in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra. The project, a partnership…

A recently published investigation finds U.S. chemical recycling facilities are making fuel and chemicals, but not new plastics, while generating air pollution and toxic waste. That ‘green tech’ could soon go global.

Amazon Basin urban centers are contaminating the Amazon, Negro, Tapajós and Tocantins rivers with pharmaceuticals and wastewater, with still largely unknown impacts on aquatic ecosystems.

Technology-critical elements (TCEs) — vital for wind and solar power and electric cars — are contaminating land and water, impacting biodiversity and health. A circular economy may be the solution.

175 nations have unanimously agreed to a landmark UN framework to fight global plastic pollution. Though this is a huge environmental win, the devil is in the details to be hammered out over the next two years.

A tiny, poppy seed-sized particle of plastic might seem innocuous on its own. But when a speck of plastic is coupled with organic pollutants, the chemical makeup of that plastic…

Of the nine critical planetary boundaries that humanity is transgressing, climate change is the best known and understood, while atmospheric aerosol pollution may be the least, but aerosols are already having climate impacts and polluting Earth’s skies, killing millions.

Caffeine isn’t only the most consumed psychostimulant in the world, it’s also one of the most ubiquitous of pollutants in the world’s rivers, says a new global study of pharmaceutical waste. It’s also impacting marine ecosystems, says another new study.

Brazil’s lower house of congress has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would loosen regulations for the use of pesticides, raising concerns that approval in the Senate would unleash further environmental…

Modeling shows microplastics can be trapped in river sediments for up to 7 years posing unknown and unstudied risks to biodiversity and human health.

A February U.N. meeting will address the urgent need for a treaty to control plastics pollution, but whether the forthcoming draft agreement will regulate global plastics supply chains from cradle to grave, or be limited to protecting oceans, is unknown.

On Oct. 23, 2021, the bulk carrier NS Qingdao, carrying 1,500 metric tons of fertilizers and industrial reagents, docked in South Africa’s Indian Ocean port of Durban. During offloading, rainwater…

7.8 billion people produce a lot of waste, but governments, entrepreneurs and NGOs are developing a host of technologies that work with nature to transform a dirty problem into a suite of elegant sustainable solutions.

Pesticides have been dropped from planes and even helicopters with the aim of evading IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental agency, for years as a method to clear remote and hard-to-reach areas…

It doesn’t get talked about much, but 7.8 billion humans make a lot of waste, and a lot of it is flowing into the planet’s rivers, estuaries and oceans, with major impacts on clean water, biodiversity and public health.

Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state. They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier

Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.

In the early hours of July 13, a group of unknown people set fire to a massive warehouse full of agrochemicals in the Cornubia area of Durban on South Africa's…

Today we discuss Planetary Boundaries, nine environmental systems identified by scientists as essential to Earth’s ability to sustain life and the limits to how far out of equilibrium we can…

More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.

In 1987, world leaders signed the Montreal Protocol in an attempt to curb the amount of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other harmful chemicals being released into the atmosphere, which have been…

A lone figure kneels at the high-tide line of Tregantle Beach. A 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) sweep of golden sands that hugs the coast of Cornwall in southwest England, Tregantle is bound…