by GST Staff
Cactus waste could become a low-cost building material
Construction sites don’t usually bring cactus plants to mind. Still, engineers think leftover material from prickly pear cactus farming could offer a cleaner, lower-cost way to make building materials. At first, the idea may sound unusual. But it points to a real problem in construction.
Plastic bottles recycled into Parkinson’s drug using bacteria
17 March, 2026 – UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH RESEARCHERS have used bacteria to turn plastic waste into a Parkinson’s drug, advancing a new approach known as “bio-upcycling”.
The University of Edinburgh biotechnology researchers successfully synthesised the drug L-DOPA, also known as Levodopa, from the raw ingredient of post-consumer waste plastic, in a process they say is more sustainable than relying on pharmaceuticals’ usual feedstock of fossil fuels.
Fighting a losing battle to tackle growth in plastic production
THE GUARDIAN – Readers respond to an interview with Beth Gardiner on how the oil industry is pumping billions more into plastics – Beth Gardiner is right to argue that plastic is not merely a recycling failure (‘They pushed so many lies about recycling’: the fight to stop big oil pumping billions more into plastics, 19 February). It is something far more consequential: an oil growth strategy.
Kruger recycling project aims to cut waste
AUTHORITIES AT ONE of SA’s premier tourist destinations, the Kruger National Park, are hopeful that a recycling pilot project will divert tonnes of waste destined for landfill and instead recycle it and incorporate it into the country’s circular economy.
The pilot project, which is a collaborative effort between SANParks and producer responsibility organisation Petco, sees a new animal-proof, three-bin recycling system being implemented at the popular Tshokwane picnic site near Skukuza, in the southern Marula region of the park.
Over the recent festive season, over 43 000 food and beverage items were sold at the Tshokwane site alone, and more than half a tonne of recyclable product packaging was recovered using the new bin system…
Byna 80% van SA se vullisterreine druip audit
DIE MEESTE VAN Suid-Afrika se vullisterreine word swak bestuur.
Hierdie situasie skep beduidende risiko’s vir openbare gesondheid en kan lei tot besoedeling van die lug, grond en ondergrondse en oppervlakwater, lui ‘n nuwe verslag van AfriForum.
Lees meer: Maroelamedia
Recycling Can’t Solve Our Plastic Crisis
THROWING your plastic bottles in the recycling bin may make you feel good about yourself, or ease your guilt about your climate impact. But recycling plastic will not address the plastic pollution crisis-and it is time we stop pretending as such.
Less than 6% of plastic waste in the United States is recycled. This number tends to surprise people, in part, because it is a hard truth to accept. We all want a magic wand that can effortlessly eliminate the plastic trail of consumerism. Plus, we’ve been misled to believe that sea turtles would stop choking on our plastic waste if we faithfully chucked it into the recycling bin.
Read more: by Judith Enck in Time
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now so large that dozens of species call it “home”
When we picture the open Pacific, we imagine endless blue water and not much else. Marine researchers, however, are now seeing something very different: places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where plastic waste has built a kind of artificial shoreline far from any land.
In the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the huge rotating current system between California and Hawaii, floating objects tend to get trapped instead of drifting away. That’s where you find what people commonly call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a region that now holds tens of thousands of tons of plastic pieces sturdy enough to move around the ocean for years at a time.
Read more: by Eric Ralls in Earth.com
Household burning of plastic waste in developing world is hidden health threat, study shows
The household burning of plastic for heating and cooking is widespread in developing countries, suggests a global study that raises concerns about its health and environmental impacts.
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, surveyed more than 1,000 respondents across 26 countries. One in three people reported being aware of households burning plastic, while 16% said they had burned plastic themselves.
Respondents worked closely with low-income urban neighbourhoods and included researchers, government workers and community leaders.
Dr Bishal Bharadwaj, the lead author of the study and a research associate at the University of Calgary, said the work provided broad global evidence on households burning plastic, a practice that had been “difficult to get accurate data on”.