A mutant enzyme, created accidentally by scientists, eats up plastic waste, potentially helping to solve the planet’s growing plastic problem. Sounds like the stuff of science fiction, right? 

Yet it’s exactly what happened at a waste dump in Japan. In 2016, after spending five years searching through piles of waste, Japanese researchers discovered a strain of bacteria that naturally evolved to eat away at one of the most common plastics in the world: polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or polyester.

Ship-from-home is here to stay. 

The Internet—and increasingly, social media—is transforming the retail landscape, enabling hundreds of thousands of people to make a part- or even full-time income from selling merchandise of all kinds via their own websites or sites like Ebay, Etsy, and Amazon. One of the most critical elements of this burgeoning business is the shipping.

As shipping from home becomes increasingly prevalent, it’s also growing increasingly trendy—and competitive. 

The European Parliament voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastic waste across the union in a bid to stop pollution of the oceans. The proposal also called for a reduction in single-use plastic waste for food and drink containers, including plastic cups.

China has long been treated as our planet’s repository for plastic waste. The nation has accepted 45% of the world's total plastic recycling since reporting to the United Nations Comtrade Database began in 1992.