Enlarge (credit: Thomas Winz ) Throughout the lifetime of an average tire, 30 percent of it gets eroded away as cars zip around on city streets and brake for little old ladies. But the leftover particles don’t remain as streaks on a road. One study found that 1. 5 million metric tons of this tire […]
Enlarge / Thought climate change was already complicated? Now scientists have to consider the influence of tiny bits of atmospheric plastic. (credit: Sanka Vidanagama | Getty Images) Like the ash spewed from a supervolcano, microplastics have infested the atmosphere and encircled the globe. These are bits of plastic less than 5 millimeters long, and they […]
Enlarge / Discarded plastic bottles made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) are bundled at a recycling center. (credit: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg ) The recycling symbol—those three arrows stamped on myriad plastic items—doesn’t mean what most people think it does, and a California bill wants to change that. The California Legislature passed a bill yesterday that would ban […]