Recycling

Here’s the concept: Bring in a kilogram of plastic trash — about two pounds worth — and you get a free hot meal.

Catherine Conway’s business, Unpackaged, provides guidance for running a zero waste business.

Here’s the problem with plastic: It’s super useful. But it can take centuries to degrade. What if there was a better plastic that was easier to recycle?

Recent research estimates that as much as a credit card’s worth of plastic makes its way into our bodies each week. A new bill aims to drastically reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the nation’s waste stream.

Plastic has long been made from oil, but today it’s increasingly made from ethane, a component of natural gas. To turn ethane into the building block of plastic, petrochemical companies are investing in ethane cracker plants, raising concerns about what these facilities could mean for air pollution and climate change.