Sunlight hits tiny particles of plastic floating in a clear water solution. Slowly, they begin to disappear, leaving behind a familiar household chemical: acetic acid, the main ingredient in vinegar.

Chemists have developed a catalytic process that turns the largest component of today's plastic waste stream, polyolefin plastic bags and bottles, into gases -- propylene and isobutylene -- that are ...

A radical new process “vaporizes” plastic bags and bottles to help make recycled materials. American scientists say the innovative chemical procedure turns ubiquitous waste items into hydrocarbon ...

One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there’s not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable and different enough from existing food sources that ...

It’s morning, and you wake up on a comfortable foam mattress made partly from greenhouse gas. You pull on a T-shirt and sneakers manufactured using carbon dioxide pulled from factory emissions. After ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Dr. Wu demonstrates a way to tackle plastic pollution while simultaneously producing valuable chemicals. (CREDIT: University of ...

Graduate student RJ Conk adjusts a reaction chamber in which mixed plastics are degraded into the reusable building blocks of new polymers. A new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics ...