Colorado limits plastic bags, Boulder expands fees – but do bans and fines actually reduce waste?

Retail stores in Boulder, Colo., banned plastic bags and will charge 10 cents for paper bags in an effort to reduce plastic waste. But do bans and taxes like this really work?

Eleanor Putnam-Farr, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University • conversation
Jan. 30, 2024 • ~5 min

Boulder strengthens rules against plastic bags – but do bans and fines actually reduce waste?

Retail stores in Boulder, Colo., banned plastic bags and will charge 10 cents for paper bags in an effort to reduce plastic waste. But do bans and taxes like this really work?

Eleanor Putnam-Farr, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University • conversation
Jan. 30, 2024 • ~5 min

Will we eventually have to send our trash into space if we run out of room on Earth?

Humans generate a lot of trash, but there are cheaper and safer ways to handle it than loading it on rockets.

Kate O'Neill, Professor of Global Environmental Politics, University of California, Berkeley • conversation
March 6, 2023 • ~6 min

Single-use plastic bans: research shows three ways to make them effective

How to make England’s new ban a success.

Tegan Evans, PhD Candidate in Ocean Governance, University of Portsmouth • conversation
Jan. 13, 2023 • ~6 min

Most plastic recycling produces low-value materials – but we've found a way to turn a common plastic into high-value molecules

Plastic waste is a global problem. Now a chemist has developed a new strategy for breaking down the most common plastic so it can be not just recycled, but upcycled into desirable goods.

Susannah Scott, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, University of California Santa Barbara • conversation
Oct. 23, 2020 • ~6 min

Newly hatched Florida sea turtles are consuming dangerous quantities of floating plastic

A new study reports that baby Florida sea turtles are consuming large quantities of plastic waste during a critical early life stage at sea.

Catherine Eastman, Sea Turtle Hospital Program Coordinator, Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida • conversation
Aug. 31, 2020 • ~8 min

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