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Pushing plastics

Masks and gloves found in the Mediterranean Sea by members of Opération Mer Propre, or Operation Clean Sea, in mid-May, just after France lifted some of its coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

French nonprofit warns ‘COVID waste’ could harm the environment

Environment

Opération Mer Propre, or Operation Clean Sea, is a nonprofit group that cleans the waters of France’s Mediterranean coast. In addition to the usual waste they find, they’re now picking up masks and gloves.

A man picks through a huge heap of plastic trash

‘More waste, better taste’: This Garbage Café offers food in exchange for plastic

Environment
Ethane crackers pollution, carbon emissions

New ethane cracker factories raise climate change and pollution concerns

Environment
A hand holds small micro-plastics.

As the world grapples with plastic, the US makes more of it — a lot more

Pushing plastics
a big pile of plastic garbage

America’s grungy ‘recycled’ plastic is creating wastelands in Asia

Pushing plastics
Workers in a dark building sort trash from a conveyor belt.

Inside the long war to protect plastic

Pushing plastics

Single-use plastic is clogging oceans and landfills. The industry that makes it has waged a decades-long campaign to keep it on the market.