Pollution Archives

Peut-on recycler les batteries des véhicules électriques ?

La voiture électrique permet de décarboner en partie les transports, mais le devenir des batteries après leur utilisation reste un problème ouvert. Michael Marais, Flickr, CC BY Serge Pelissier, Université Gustave Eiffel La quantité de batteries lithium-ion fabriquées a été multipliée par 80 entre 2000 et 2018. En 2018, 66 % d’entre elles étaient utilisés dans des véhicules électriques. Le développement …

It might be the world’s biggest ocean, but the mighty Pacific is in peril

Shutterstock Jodie L. Rummer, James Cook University; Bridie JM Allan, University of Otago; Charitha Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia; Ian A. Bouyoucos, James Cook University; Irfan Yulianto, IPB University, and Mirjam van der Mheen, University of Western Australia The Pacific Ocean is the deepest, largest ocean on Earth, covering about a third of the globe’s surface. An ocean that vast …

Most plastic recycling produces low-value materials – but we’ve found a way to turn a common plastic into high-value molecules

Bales of plastic waste destined for recycling. Koron/Getty Images Susannah Scott, University of California Santa Barbara If you thought those flimsy disposable plastic grocery bags represented most of our plastic waste problem, think again. The volume of plastic the world throws away every year could rebuild the Ming Dynasty’s Great Wall of China – about 3,700 miles long. In the …

Bottle-fed babies may consume millions of microplastic particles, our research suggests

Evso/Shutterstock Dunzhu Li, Trinity College Dublin and Yunhong Shi, Trinity College Dublin Microplastics can now be found in almost every environment on Earth, but scientists know surprisingly little about how the products we use every day shed these tiny plastic particles. If you drink from a plastic water bottle or eat out of a microwaveable container today, there’s a good …