To reduce the number of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills, consumers are encouraged to buy reusable bottles. Since those can be bulky to carry along, a company in Thousand Oaks, California designed an alternative. Vapur is a reusable water bottle that flattens when empty. Like a regular bottle, it stands upright when [...]

It takes 17 million barrels of oil each year to make water bottles for the U.S. market. That would be enough oil to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. 37,800 18-wheelers deliver bottled water around the country every week. Manufacturing and filling the plastic water bottles, on average wastes 30-40% of the water involved [...]

Like a modern-day alchemist, Washington, DC-based Envion has developed a system to produce oil from waste plastic. Considering that the price of crude oil is once again on the rise, that’s not unlike turning rocks into gold. Envion, founded in 2004, is keeping the lid on the details of its proprietary technology, but does reveal [...]

A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility…and worse. By Susan Casey, Photographs by Gregg Segal Published: November 2006   [ Updated: Mar 12, 2009 - 6:17:24 PM ] Photo: Courtesy of [...]