Plastic Bags Yield More Diesel, Using Less Energy, than Crude Oil

Yay, another valuable use for recycled plastic bags! Instead of throwing away 100 billion of them a year, Americans might want to look into gassing up their SUVs with fuel made from the petroleum-based bags. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (go Illini!) say that plastic shopping bags can be converted into diesel, natural …

New Push Against Pestilent Plastic

Faithful readers of this blog will surely recognize the sentiment behind this next post. Disposable plastic crap—from drinking straws to shopping bags to flip-flops—bears hideous witness to our callous view of the environment around us. I’ve picked up cubic yards of junk off an otherwise pristine beach in Mexico that had the misfortune of acting …