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Biodegradable plastics have gotten cheaper and more reliable, but some still object to their ecological footprint, according to The Christian Science Monitor Paper, plastic… or biodegradable? Yes, get ready to add a third option at the grocery store checkout line as biodegradable plastics enter the mainstream consumer market. It is …

A US start-up company Novomer is developing biodegradable plastics made from carbon dioxide. Environmentalresearchweb reports that the company, which recently received US$6.6 m in venture capital funding, claims that its plastics can contain up to 50% of the material by weight. Carbon dioxide is very unreactive and chemists have in …

Scientists in New York are reporting development of a new biodegradable "nanohybrid" plastic that can be engineered to decompose much faster than existing plastics used in everything from soft drink bottles to medical implants. Science Daily reports that the plastic is a modified form of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a promising biodegradable …

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency is promoting the recycling of certain petroleum secondary materials into fuel. This effort, which will revise the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act regulations, is expected to help petroleum refineries reduce waste and capture more energy from each barrel of oil by allowing for the …

The publication is part of efforts to raise farmer awareness ahead of the expected introduction of a Statutory Producer Responsibility (PR) scheme. The main thrust of the scheme should see non-packaging plastic producers and importers given responsibility for funding collection of the waste, with every farm across the country given …

Engineers at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) are busy installing a new woodchip-powered generator, which will be more than 80% efficient when running at full power. The woodchip-powered combined heat and power plant (CHP) will generate up to 100kW of electricity, enough to meet the instantaneous power demands of …

India has evinced interest in the ‘‘Recycling Centre Concept‘‘ offered by The Netherlands-based World Wide Recycling that focusses on reusing waste fractions for new products and electricity generation. The Hindu newspaper reports that when fully developed, this waste management concept turns more than 80 per cent of existing waste streams …

AHN reports that a large Hong Kong supermarket chain reduced its plastic bag use by 30 million bags. ParknShop opened its no-bag day Wednesday providing biodegradable plastic bags in lieu of regular plastic containers. The campaign to make shopping a more environment-friendly activity was further boosted by a proposal to …

Shenzhen City in south China‘‘s Guangdong Province is considering to pass an ordinance to end free use of plastic shopping bags supplied by retailers. Xinhuanet reports that the city‘‘s legislative affairs office has been soliciting opinions on a revised draft of an environmental protection regulation that would end the three-decade-long …

Centralised treatment of food waste using methods such as in-vessel composting or anaerobic digestion can cause more greenhouse gases than household treatments using Food Waste Digesters (FWDs), says an environmental study. MRW reports that the study titled Comparison of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Centralised and Household Treatments of Food …