Historically, the leather industry has created large amounts of pollution and waste, while using huge amounts of water. But some companies are cleaning up their act, even as synthetic and biobased alternatives multiply.
Scientists have found many plastics are toxic, but activists say two ubiquitous polymers are the worst of all: polystyrene and PVC. Some are calling for not only a national ban on these two, but for a global ban enshrined in a plastics treaty.
The story of wheat as a cultivated crop is nearly as old as that of human civilization itself. Few plants have played a bigger role in our history than the…
A billion tires enter landfills, are burned, or litter the landscape every year, and more will be dumped as auto use surges planetwide. Industry analysts and entrepreneurs are pressing for circular economy solutions.
SINGAPORE — If you didn’t know better, you might think Edwin Beng is heading home after buying a new appliance. It’s a muggy Sunday morning in Singapore, and Beng, carrying…
In 2020, 282 containers full of mixed waste bales sailed from Salerno, Italy, to Sousse, Tunisia, in four shipments. Italian customs did not raise any flags. Customs classified them as…
SINGAPORE — For a while now, researchers and policy experts have touted the transition to a circular economy as a way to sustainably handle the world’s growing waste and pollution…
Bangladesh is the world's second-largest exporter of ready-to-wear (RMG) clothing, with a significant capacity for manufacturing, high quality and expansion. More than 83% of Bangladesh's overall exports, worth more than…
As 175 countries prepare to gather in May to move ahead on a global plastics treaty, the world’s plastic-producing and plastic-polluted countries remain divided on whether the agreement should be mandatory or voluntary, among many other issues.
Seaweed, a common name for thousands of marine plants and algae found in different water bodies, not only provides food and shelter for marine animals, but it can also help…
The tobacco supply chain has harmful consequences for forests, oceans and the climate, and also for farmers and their families who produce the crop — all to an extent that is not yet fully known.
We all send our recycling somewhere for proper handling, but the operation of one such handling center in Poland makes one ask, is it being done right, or at all?…
The U.K. styles itself as a leader on environmental concerns, but when it comes to dealing with waste, it's got a ways to go in tackling the mountains of rubbish…
England is facing a waste crisis, and not one you've likely heard of: the clandestine dumping of household and business waste, even dead animals, in the countryside. So-called 'fly-tipping' happens…
The past decade has seen a paradigm shift in the way the world looks at lighting. Homes, offices and streets have turned off wasteful incandescent lights and fluorescent ones that…
The multibillion-dollar global console gaming industry is linked to environmental harm throughout the life cycle of these wildly popular devices. But the industry is taking some steps to curb its excesses.
The Bangladesh government has taken no effective steps to implement the e-waste management regulations it introduced more than a year back, as the rules relating to it are stuck in…
Scientists and companies are looking to a small section of the textile market to address the clothing industry’s threats to climate and ecosystems. Cellulose fabrics are fibers extracted from plants,…
In April 2022, a Texas company unveiled a plan to transform a tiny Pennsylvania town into an industrial hub: it would invest $1.1 billion into building a manufacturing plant that…
The planetwide cocaine supply chain — its production, trafficking and consumption — causes deforestation and pollution, and impacts biodiversity, as do other criminal activities associated with illegal drugs.
