Health U.S. Recycling Industry Is Struggling to Figure Out A Future Without China China is no longer taking the world's waste. The U.S. recycling industry is overwhelmed — it can't keep up with the plastic being churned out. This doesn't bode well for our plastic waste problem. Christopher Joyce
Environment Plastics Or People? At Least 1 Of Them Has To Change To Clean Up Our Mess As consumers rebel against plastic waste, there's a growing question: Do we invent something people can toss without harming the environment or do we change people by giving them a chance to reuse? Christopher Joyce
Environment Replacing Plastic: Can Bacteria Help Us Break The Habit? Entrepreneurs are eager to find substitutes for plastic that naturally degrade. One option is a "natural" plastic made by microbes and then eaten by them. But the process is still in early days. Christopher Joyce
Environment Are Plastic Bag Bans Garbage? A national movement to ban plastic bags is gaining steam, but these restrictions may actually hurt the environment more than help it. Human nature, hard truths, and what kind of bag to use anyway? Greg Rosalsky
Environment Your Questions About Plastic Waste, Answered How can I find out if my plastic waste is really being recycled What makes some plastic recyclable and some not? Here are answers from the NPR correspondents working on "The Plastic Tide" series. Christopher Joyce Rebecca Davis
Environment Creator Of Floating Garbage Collector Struggling To Capture Plastic In Pacific A young innovator wants to remove all the plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But his invention, a long floating boom, is moving too slowly to hold the trash it collects. Francesca Paris
What are the real tradeoffs of the straw ban? Seattle's straw ban has coincided with hometown coffee chain Starbucks' decision to phase out all single-use plastic straws by 2020. The new sippy cup... Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Bill Radke
Seattle bans plastic straws, but the alternatives aren't perfect either There’s a rising tide of concern over the plastic junk flowing into the world’s oceans. So starting July 1, restaurants and bars in Seattle won’t be... John Ryan
That was the last (single-use, plastic) straw Nothing is more satisfying than the sweet sound of a straw - a pointy, plastic straw - piercing the seal on a tall cup of bubble tea. But after this... Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Bill Radke
200 Seattle businesses say goodbye to plastic drinking straws Two hundred or so businesses in Seattle are doing away with plastic drinking straws this month. It’s an environmental initiative deemed “Strawless in... Paige Browning
