Sustainability in the News

Source: Ksmith@dailyherald.com, Katlyn Smith. “Working toward ‘Net-Zero’ Status.” Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), 2026, p. 4. Access World News, Accessed 2 Feb. 2026. 

The visitor center and animal hospital at the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center in Glen Ellyn, IL is the first "net-zero" designed building in the DuPage County forest preserve system. Solar energy is expected to produce 110% of the facility's needs, and the building also incorporates a geothermal system, double-glazed windows, and extra insulation.

Source: Waste360, 4/6/26

"Textile waste continues to be one of the most pressing sustainability challenges in our industry, but new collaborations are constantly emerging to combat the issue and make responsible disposal easier for consumers. As we enter Earth Month, WM, UNIQLO, and Piece of Cake Moving & Storage are expanding the UNTrash It Program beyond New York City into Los Angeles and Dallas. This move will build on a pilot program that has diverted more than 7,000 pounds of clothing from landfills and into reuse and recycling streams. To get more insight into this expansion and initiative, Waste360 caught up with Tom Carpenter, senior director of circulatory solutions at WM, and Jean Shein, global director of sustainability at UNIQLO. The two share how the partnership is working to scale textile recovery efforts and reshape how consumers think about clothing disposal."

Source: Chemical & Engineering News, 3/11/26

‘Cobalt and nickel, bound together in lithium-ion battery cathodes, are difficult to separate during battery recycling. Researchers have now found a way to tease the elements apart electrochemically with the help of tartaric acid, which is found in grapes and is a wine-industry by-product (Sci. Adv. 2026, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec7956).'

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder, 6/23/25

Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S. — much longer than scientists estimated. 

A new study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, analyzed water quality in more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S., and is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality. The results showed contaminants like organic carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment can degrade water quality for up to eight years after a fire. Water managers can use this data to help them plan for the future and respond appropriately when wildfires strike.  

Source: Forbes, 10/22/25

The demand for Lithium-ion batteries might be on the rise, but how many of us are aware they contain harmful PFAS compounds, otherwise known as “forever chemicals”? The use of such compounds is obviously not good for the environment, and the search is now on for alternative compounds, which can be used in the next generation of batteries.

Source: Trellis, 1/20/26

'What is a New York City handbag giant doing in central Illinois, where it lacks boutiques, offices and factories? Tapestry, which runs the Coach and Kate Spade brands, together with Pivot Energy, completed three community solar projects on Jan. 8. They total 13.5 megawatts, enough to power about 2,500 homes. Two more installations will follow those just established in Peoria, Ottawa and tiny Dover, Illinois, in a 15-year partnership, announced in 2023. The five community solar projects will add up to a modest 33 megawatts. However, those clean electrons are instrumental to Tapestry's goal for 2025, which it reached, to count 100 percent renewables across its own operations, according to Logan Duran, global head of ESG and sustainability at Tapestry.'

Source: The Conversation, 3/6/25

Ambuj Tewari, a machine learning researcher at the University of Michigan, collaborated with a team of scientists to develop a tool to more reliably identify microplastics using their unique chemical compositions.

Source: University of Pennsylvania, 5/13/25

Survey data show that most people believe climate change is happening, but many don’t act, and as a postdoctoral fellow in Annenberg School for Communication Professor Emily Falk’s Communication Neuroscience Lab, Alyssa (Allie) Sinclair has thought a lot about why that might be. Building off health behavior studies and other literature in psychology, neuroscience, and communication, Sinclair led an interdisciplinary team of researchers examining how to overcome these barriers to climate action. In an “intervention tournament” with 7,624 U.S. adults, Penn researchers including Sinclair, Falk, and Mann tested 17 interventions targeting the themes of relevance, future thinking, and response efficacy to see which were most effective for motivating action. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Source: Inside Climate News, 10/23/25

Farmers trying to minimize nitrate running off their fields and contaminating water are partnering with the Wetlands Initiative to build “smart wetlands.”

Source: American Chemical Society, 10/14/25

Wetlands act as nature’s kidneys: They trap sediments, absorb excess nutrients and turn pollutants into less harmful substances. Now, the list of pollutants wetland plants can remove includes per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). From a greenhouse study, researchers in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology report that moisture-loving yellow flag irises and fungi on their roots are a promising combination for PFAS removal. As part of a constructed wetland, this pair could effectively treat contaminated wastewater.

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst, 4/1/25

While the threat that microplastics pose to human and ecological health has been richly documented and is well known, nanoplastics, which are smaller than one micrometer (1/50th the thickness of an average human hair), are far more reactive, far more mobile and vastly more capable of crossing biological membranes. Yet, because they are so tiny and so mobile, researchers don't yet have an accurate understanding of just how toxic these particles are. The first step to understanding the toxicology of nanoplastics is to build a reliable, efficient and flexible tool that can not only quantify their concentration in a given sample, but also analyze which specific plastics that sample contains.

An international team of scientists led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in Nature Water the development of a new tool, known as the OM-SERS setup, which can do all of these things and can furthermore be used to detect particular nanoplastic concentrations and polymer types in solid samples, such as soils, body tissues and plants.

Source: World Economic Forum, 4/22/25

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) transforms CO₂ into valuable products and has particular value for hard-to-abate sectors aiming to decarbonize. The UpLink Carbon Capture and Utilization challenge is currently supporting 11 startups offering ways of utilizing CO2 that could play a role in industry decarbonization.

Source: Horizon Magazine, 12/3/24

EU-funded researchers are turning food processing waste into a valuable resource, transforming discarded biomaterials into natural fertilizers.

Source: Food & Wine, 1/12/26

'U.S. researchers have found a way to transform carrot waste into a sustainable protein source by feeding carrot scraps to edible fungi. Pink oyster mushrooms showed the most promise, producing high-protein yields comparable to those of animal and plant sources while remaining low in fat and rich in fiber. In taste tests, volunteers preferred vegan patties made entirely from fungal mycelium to those made with soy, pointing to a flavorful, eco-friendly new alternative protein.'

See https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.5c11223 for complete findings.

Source: University of Texas at Austin, 2/4/26

'Supra Elemental Recovery Inc. (Supra), a startup that spun out of engineering and natural sciences labs at The University of Texas at Austin, has launched with a $250,000 investment from Discovery to Impact's UT Seed Fund as part of its pre-seed funding round. Supra will commercialize its proprietary technology that leverages advances in chemistry, materials science and engineering to recover critical minerals at high purity from U.S. waste sources, including mine tailings, industrial byproducts and electronic waste.'

Source: Interesting Engineering, 4/9/26

"US researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have found a new way to turn the world’s most common plastic waste into gasoline and diesel fuels. Polyethylene is a common polymer used in the manufacturing of grocery bags, kitchen cutting boards, and other consumer goods. Through a specialized molten salt treatment, the long polymer chains in polyethylene are broken down into fuel-grade molecules. Currently, other known methods use high heat to break down plastic, but this new technique accomplishes the same at temperatures around 200°C (392°F). It makes the entire conversion process much cheaper and less energy-intensive." 

See https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c01107 for the full study.

Source: Knowable Magazine, 8/8/25

At first glance, Nam-Joon Cho’s lab at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University looks like your typical research facility — scientists toiling away, crowded workbenches, a hum of machinery in the background. But the orange-yellow stains on the lab coats slung on hooks hint at a less-usual subject matter under study. The powdery stain is pollen: microscopic grains containing male reproductive cells that trees, weeds and grasses release seasonally. But Cho isn’t studying irksome effects like hay fever, or what pollen means for the plants that make it. Instead, the material scientist has spent a decade pioneering and refining techniques to remodel pollen’s rigid outer shell — made of a polymer so tough it’s sometimes called “the diamond of the plant world” — transforming the grains to a jam-like consistency.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, 2/28/25

Stormwater and road runoff are recognized forms of pollution that can contain chemicals harmful to fish and other aquatic animals. This includes 6PPD-quinone, the oxidized form of the chemical compound 6PPD that is used to prevent tires from degrading and cracking, ensuring driver safety. As 6PPD-quinone sheds from tires during normal wear it can enter streams in stormwater runoff. This page provides an overview of current research and future directions by the USGS Environmental Health Program.

Source: Inside EVs, 1/30/26

'Used EVs are now the cheapest cars to own over a 10-year vehicle life period, according to a new study from the University of Michigan published in Environmental Research Letters. In short, a three-year-old electric mid-size SUV can offer an average lifetime savings of $13,000 compared to a new gas-powered mid-size SUV. Meanwhile, a used gas SUV from the same category can deliver a lifetime savings of just $3,000, according to the study’s authors.'

Source: USC Keck School of Medicine, 9/10/25

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), manmade chemicals that accumulate in the body over time, have been linked to liver disease and cancer, but it is not yet clear how they cause damage. Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC used a lab model of the human liver to analyze changes at the cellular level, finding that some PFAS triggered fat accumulation and others caused cell damage linked to cancer. The study was just published in the journal Environment International. 

Source: University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) Newsletter, March 2026

'CSS faculty Ben Goldstein, with co-authors Estefany Cabanillas and Mark Lefsrud, published a new study comparing controlled-environment lettuce farming to conventional agriculture across Canada, finding that controlled-environment agriculture can reduce water and land use, but the environmental benefits hinge on local energy grids. In provinces with low-carbon energy grids, like Quebec, the climate change impacts of controlled urban farming are lowered. In contrast, in carbon-heavy grids like Alberta, emissions exceed those of conventional farms. The results underscore that urban agriculture’s sustainability depends on low-carbon energy sources and geography, suggesting controlled-environment agriculture should be prioritized in cities with low-carbon energy grids or alongside renewable energy sources.'

Read the study in Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

Source: E+E Leader, 4/22/25

Laboratories are hubs of scientific discovery—but they are also resource-intensive spaces, consuming as much as 10 times more electricity and four times more water than typical academic buildings, according to Georgia Tech. With nearly 900,000 square feet of lab space on campus, the university faced a challenge shared by many research institutions: how to reconcile innovation with environmental responsibility.

Source: University of Maine, 8/5/25

A new app, “What Uses More,” aims to reveal the environmental footprint of tasks completed with artificial intelligence, encouraging users to examine critically the energy and water consumption of their digital activities. 

Source: McGill University, 5/8/25

Researchers at McGill University, in collaboration with Polytechnique Montréal, pioneered a new way to create hydrogels using ultrasound, eliminating the need for toxic chemical initiators. This breakthrough offers a faster, cleaner and more sustainable approach to hydrogel fabrication, and produces hydrogels that are stronger, more flexible and highly resistant to freezing and dehydration. The new method also promises to facilitate advances in tissue engineering, bioadhesives and 3D bioprinting. Hydrogels are gels composed of polymers that can absorb and retain large amounts of water.  They are widely used in wound dressings, drug delivery, tissue engineering, soft robotics, soft contact lenses and more. 

Source: University of British Columbia, 9/25/25

UBC researchers unveiled the world’s first mushroom-powered waterless toilet at the university's botanical garden. The MycoToilet turns human waste into nutrient-rich compost using mycelia—the root networks of mushrooms—and features a modern, sustainable design that can be dropped into parks, remote communities, and areas without plumbing.

Source: CBS News Videos via Yahoo News, 4/7/26

"A NASA mission designed to study dust is now helping scientists track plastic pollution, from space. Climatologist Marina Jurica explains how JPL is tackling this problem 250 miles from us."

For more information on the EMIT project's application to global plastics detection, see https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/applications/application-areas/plastics/.

Source: Knowable Magazine, 10/13/25

A new technique for detecting unknown and unlooked-for chemicals is revealing dozens of contaminants in alligators, sea lions and condors 

Source: Shenyang Agricultural University, 9/26/25

Bio-tar, once seen as a toxic waste, can be transformed into bio-carbon with applications in clean energy and environmental protection. This innovation could reduce emissions, create profits, and solve a major bioenergy industry problem.

Source: Packaging Dive, 1/6/26

'PET bottles — both virgin and recycled — contain a dozen leachable plastic additives and at least a dozen more hazardous chemicals that were not intentionally added, according to a small study published in late 2025. The findings add to a growing body of research on chemical leaching from plastics and come as new rules requiring recycled material boost demand for recycled PET. The analysis, published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts journal, found that virgin and recycled products can leach chemicals that have been linked to cancer, endocrine disruption and reproductive problems. The study did not, for the most part, quantify levels of the chemicals.'  

Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 11/5/25

Volunteers across all of Minnesota’s 87 counties have been busy carefully plucking pine needles from coniferous trees in their neighborhoods and collecting them in plastic bags. Why? They’re gathering clues about how PFAS move through the air so the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) can better understand how to protect Minnesotans from PFAS pollution. Air monitoring equipment can detect PFAS in the air, but it has limitations. It requires a fenced-in area with electricity, trained staff to operate the monitoring equipment, and expensive analysis only available at a few laboratories. Pine needles, on the other hand, become a natural and much less expensive way to gather data.

Source: New York Times, 7/9/25 (gift article)

A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature estimates the volume of nanoplastics, which are even smaller than microplastics and invisible to the naked eye, to be at least 27 million metric tons in North Atlantic seas — more than the weight of all wild land mammals.

Source: EuroNews, 1/2/26

'A new study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, tracked a population of Fiddler crabs – which grow no bigger than the width of a Post-It note – in a highly polluted mangrove forest on the north coast of Colombia. Here, years of urban and agricultural expansion have degraded the mangrove systems, resulting in some of the highest levels of plastic contamination reported anywhere in the world. Despite this, researchers found that the arthropods were “thriving” and are able to ingest and break down large quantities of small plastic particles in the sediment. With the reputation of being an “ecosystem engineer”, these crabs can break down plastics within days, acting much faster than sunlight and waves...Researchers warn that the fiddler crab’s fascinating ability may come at a cost – potentially releasing harmful nanoplastics into their tissues and subsequently into the food chain.'

Source: RMIT University, 9/22/25

A team at RMIT University has created a cement-free construction material using only cardboard, soil, and water. Strong enough for low-rise buildings, it reduces emissions, costs, and waste compared to concrete. The lightweight, on-site process makes it ideal for remote areas, while its thermal properties naturally cool buildings. Researchers see it as a key step toward greener, more resilient architecture.

Source: Northwestern University, 2/5/25

Northwestern researchers have developed a specialized sponge that slurps up pollutants, offering a reusable and cost-effective solution to water contamination. As more waterways contend with algae blooms and pollution caused by minerals from agricultural runoff and industrial manufacturing processes, new methods to remove pollutants like phosphate, copper and zinc are emerging across fields. While solutions exist, they tend to be costly and can be used just once. The sponge, coated with nanoparticles that have an affinity for pollutants, can collect metals like zinc and copper, as well as phosphate, and in previous iterations has successfully pulled lead from water, and microplastics and oil from lakes and oceans. It then releases these valuable resources when it is exposed to different pHs. 

See https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsestwater.4c01234 for the study describing this research.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News, 10/27/25

In the past year, several research groups have reported methods for upcycling PTFE, better known by its brand name, Teflon, into useful chemicals. The latest work in this area comes from chemists led by Roly J. Armstrong at Newcastle University and Erli Lu and Dominik J. Kubicki at the University of Birmingham. The team developed a process that transforms PTFE into sodium fluoride and amorphous carbon (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c14052). The chemists use a ball mill to grind chunks of sodium metal together with PTFE in what’s known as a mechanochemical reaction. Because the reaction uses no solvents and has no by-products, it’s environmentally friendly and has 100% atom economy. Other PTFE-upcycling reactions that have been reported to date use organic solvents or complex catalysts, or they create by-products. 

Source: Canary Media, 6/9/25

Chicago-area Sun Metalon removes gunk and grime from metal slivers normally thrown away, helping to reduce emissions from aluminum and steel production.

Source: Science, 2/18/26

'Science fiction definitely saw this one coming. Writers for the Superman, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible franchises all dreamed up the idea of storing libraries of data in glass. Now, Microsoft researchers say they are bringing this vision closer to reality by storing nearly 2 terabytes (TB) of data—enough for hundreds of thousands of photos or hundreds of hours of video—in coaster-size plates of glass. The new approach, described today in Nature, could archive data for thousands of years, simply and cheaply.'

Source: Canary Media, 9/2/25

Electrification advocacy nonprofit Rewiring America recently launched the Save on Better Appliances campaign. It’s a nationwide effort to help homeowners and renters lock in the incentives — the Energy-Efficient Home Improvement Credit and the Residential Clean Energy Credit — before they’re gone. 

Source: Trellis, 6/23/25

From big brands to startups, efforts to create circular diapers are crawling forward — but landfills are full of unrealized promises.

Source: Inside Climate News, 7/5/25

Amid a global plastic-pollution crisis, artist Erik Jon Olson turns his own plastic waste into quilted works of art in which the medium is the message.

Source: Anthropocene Magazine, 3/10/26

'Most people think climate change will primarily affect other people, a new analysis of previously published research reveals. The findings illustrate a well-known cognitive bias known as “overoptimism,” specifically a variety called “overplacement,” which describes how people tend to rate their own risks as less likely and less severe than those of others. This tendency can make people less likely to take action to reduce their own risks by, say, quitting smoking or getting vaccinated. Overly optimistic risk perceptions could also make people less likely to support climate action, the researchers say.'

For full details, see Sandlund I., et al. “Meta-analytical evidence of a self-other discrepancy in climate change-related risk perceptions.” Nature Sustainability 2026.

Source: Fast Company, 8/11/25

Concert barriers are built to be baked in the hot sun, transported through busy venues, battered by excited concertgoers, and, ultimately, disposed of. A company in Paris is giving them a second life. 

Source: Chemical & Engineering News, 3/9/26

'Ski waxes that incorporate organic fluorine help winter athletes glide better on snow. Fluorine-containing waxes have been banned from competitions since 2023 because of concerns about PFAS. This year's Winter Olympics was the first to deploy the fluoro wax test, which is based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to detect carbon-fluorine signatures.'

Source: Trellis, 6/23/25

Stories can help build emotion and meaning and brands have used them for decades, but not as successfully with resale or circular products. Too often, circularity stories end on cold, emotionless or even patronizing tone. By following a three-act narrative structure that’s time-tested, brands can add value and meaning to their circular efforts.

Source: Phys.org, 12/17/25

In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers led by Takuzo Aida at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan report a new type of plastic made from plant cellulose, the world's most abundant organic compound. The new plastic is strong, flexible, and capable of rapid decomposition in natural environments, setting it apart from other plastics marketed as biodegradable. 

Source: Waste360, 3/16/26

'A new Minnesota study finds high-temperature incineration can destroy 99%-plus of PFAS with minimal air emissions. The report follows similar findings from a Clean Harbors study. Both research projects add to a growing body of research suggesting thermal treatment is effective at eliminating PFAS—though interpreting emerging data requires careful consideration of specific operational nuances.'

Source: Universitaet Stuttgart. 9/10/25

Researchers in Germany and Australia have created a simple but powerful tool to detect nanoplastics—tiny, invisible particles that can slip through skin and even the blood-brain barrier. Using an "optical sieve" test strip viewed under a regular microscope, these particles reveal themselves through striking color changes.

Source: American Academy of Neurology, 10/3/25

A massive nationwide study has linked long-term exposure to the industrial chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) with a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease in older adults. Researchers examined over 1.1 million people, finding that those living in areas with the highest outdoor TCE levels faced a 10% greater risk of developing Parkinson’s.

Source: NIST, 2/26/25

Hidden in the walls of our homes, in the sides of our coffee cups, and even in the International Space Station, wherever humans go, we take some form of insulation with us to keep us at just the right temperature. But just because the idea is old doesn’t mean that there haven’t been innovations. Over the past few years, an entirely new category of insulation has made its way to the market. It’s called “phase change materials” (PCMs), and they control the temperature inside a room by melting and freezing over the course of a day.

Source: University of British Columbia, 9/10/25

Billions of menstrual pads end up in landfills each year. Most mainstream pads contain up to 90 per cent plastic and can take centuries to degrade. Even biodegradable products can leave plastics and harmful chemicals behind. Enter UBC biomedical engineering alumna Rashmi Prakash, who has developed a pad that’s both sustainable and reliable, winning her the James Dyson Award’s Canada prize for design innovation.