plastic

In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with tons of plastic waste. Their goal: to be more sustainable

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In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with garbage. Kilos and more kilos of discarded plastic, old open noodle packages, cookie containers and other synthetic waste that (due to their characteristics) it’s not always easy recycle. The prospect of walking or driving on trash-strewn asphalt may not seem too appealing, but it makes perfect sense and is something that has been done before (or at least tried out) in other parts of the world. Asia, Europe, Africa either America. Of course, usually in a timid way. The key is that plastic waste is not dispersed directly on the pavement. No. They are part of it, of its structure. Even there are those who maintain that improves it. Pavement with garbage? Exact. If every year we produce more than 400 million tons of plastic, much of it destined for single-use packaging and which is then difficult to recycle, and we also build (and repave) kilometers and kilometers of roads every year… Why not connect both things? What if we used the most difficult to recycle synthetic waste to make pavement? What if this material was also better than conventional asphalt? The idea It’s not entirely new and there are those who question whether it is really as sustainable and good as it seems, but the truth is that over the last few years it has attracted the interest of entrepreneurs and institutions from different countries. Usually (not always) in a timid, almost experimental way, with pilot projects and in more or less short periods, but it has managed to stay in the limelight. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Where has it been tested? A quick search on Google shows that over the last five years, “plastic paving” has convinced a few entrepreneurs and institutions from around the world. We see examples in Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Netherlands, USA, Singapore either Indiaone of the countries that has opted most decisively for this solution. In 2024 Business Standard informed that in the Asian country they had built almost 40,000 kilometers of rural tracks that included plastic waste, 13,000 of them completed in recent years. In Singapore the idea too seems to have curdled and has received the endorsement of the Public Works area. And Nepal arrived. Nepal is one of the latest to join the list. In 2025 the AFP agency published an extensive report in which he explained how the idea has reached the Asian republic, where it has already been used on at least one highway in Pokharaa city of 600,000 inhabitants that serves as the capital of Gandaki province. There the plastic flooring formula has the support of Green Road Waste Managementan organization that is trying to expand it in Nepal. Step by step. In 2025, the founder of the entity, Bimal Bastola, he assured AFP who had completed around a dozen projects totaling just over a mile. It’s not much, but the organization maintains that each kilometer of pavement uses about two metric tons of shredded plastic to build. Bastola advocates going further and carrying out projects at the government level. “We try to collaborate with the highway office.” A priori it seems that the Government does not take a dim view of the measure. Arjun Nepal, an engineer at the capital’s highway department recognize that the country “is interested in testing the technology in pilot projects,” but warns that to move forward it is necessary to first guarantee a series of quality standards. Hence the authorities wanted to carry out a test in Kathmandu. “We saw possibilities”. Bastola defends the virtues of paving with synthetic waste and remembers that it even allows lower value waste to be reused. “We saw possibilities in using these plastics as raw materials, partially replacing tar in road construction,” argues to AFP. The new system does not dispense with this material, but first covers the pavement components with crushed plastic. In addition to providing an outlet for part of the tons of plastic that are generated every day in Nepalese urban areas, Bastola assures that the system saves certain materials, reduces costs and has extra advantages for the pavement itself. “It prevents water infiltration and increases the useful life of the track,” claims. There are studies that endorse These surfaces can last longer than normal ones. Perfect, right? Depends. Although the system has sparked interest in several countries, including Nepal and its neighbors Bhutan and Bangladesh, not everyone is sure it is such a good option. Or at least it has proven to be so. From the World Bank have admitted that there are “promising” pilot studies, but they lack more research: What and how many emissions are produced during the production of the pavement? How does it actually behave in practice? Does it release microplastics? What is their impact once the plastic tracks are removed? “Garbage in for garbage out”, they warned in 2020 at GAIA on solutions such as asphalt and cement with crushed plastic remains. Images | Laurentiu Morariu (Unsplash) In Xataka | We have been thinking for decades that plastic recycling was worth something. Maybe we were wrong

fill rivers with converted plastic bottles

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It must have been the end of 2009 and, while no one was looking, a handful of wasps crossed the Nivelle River and sneaked into Dantxaria. We found them a few months later installed in Amaiur, 15 kilometers further down, already in the Batzan region. Since then, heto vespa velutina has been consolidated throughout the Cantabrian coast, Galicia and the entire Ebro valley. We have been finding and destroying nests throughout the peninsula. And in 2025, nine of them were found in Alcañiz, the first documented case in the province of Teruel. Given this, the Government of Aragon decided to take action on the matter: set traps made from plastic bottles. What are they doing? In a joint action by the Forest Guard of the Alcañiz City Council and the Nature Protection Agents of the Government of Aragon traps have been placed on the banks of the Guadalope River to catch the Asian queen wasps as they emerge from torpor. In fact, there are two types of traps: on the one hand, there are the VespaCatch, which have special holes for these queen wasps. vespa velutina for which, for example, the native wasp does not fit Vespa crabro. On the other hand, handmade traps made with plastic bottles and a pair of black zip ties have also been installed. The mechanism is the same: they work with a natural attractant made with water, sugar and fresh yeast. Once inside, they cannot leave. In this way, it is hoped that they will be prevented from creating their primary nest and end up forming a new colony. And does it work? According to Alcañiz, they have already captured 62 Asian wasp queens in what seems like a huge success. The Environmental Biology group at the University of Vigo is not so clear. This group, coordinated by Sandra V. Rojas-Nossa and Salustiano Mato, has published between 2018 and 2024 a series of works that compare the effectiveness and selectivity of the most used trap models. And the results are bittersweet. Bittersweet? Yes, it’s true: VespaCatch is the one that records the highest capture rates of the Asian wasp. But it does so at the cost of capturing vulnerable native species. In fact, according to their conclusions, “with the traps tested, bait trapping continues to be environmentally unsustainable and is not recommended as a control method in regions with an already established invasive population.” To give us an idea, according to Rojas-Nossa data, approximately 100 individuals of other species for each V. velutina captured in spring. It’s true that it’s difficult transfer Galician data to Teruel, but the capture of 62 queens could have caused a small damage to the local fauna of Guadalope. It is the great paradox of the velutinas: we have reached a point where ending them means ending everything else. Image | Alcañiz Town Hall via La Comarca In Xataka | After centuries of disappearance, there are people releasing beavers into the Tagus and other rivers in Spain. The problem is that we don’t know who

We already knew that we ate plastic. Now science has discovered the exact chaos it causes in our intestines

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We have long realized that we are surrounded by microplastics, both in the water which we take as in food or even the air that we breathe, causing them to appear even in the human placenta. However, there are still many questions about the consequences of having these microplastics in the body, although science continues to take steps to give us an answer about them. how it can alter our general healthand the last thing we know is related to the effect on our digestive system. Ground zero. Something that is already known by almost everyone is that the intestine is full of billions of microorganisms which are essential for our immunity and also for metabolism, making its alteration related even to issues in the central nervous system. But now, science suggests that microplastics can drastically alter the composition and diversity of this ecosystem by destroying some of the bacteria that we harbor inside us to create a completely different environment that can affect our digestion, but also other parts of the body. How it has been seen. To understand how this happens in real time, CSIC researchers developed a sophisticated patented digestion simulation system known as SIMGI. This is mainly based on introducing artificial particles formed by the typical plastic of water bottles into the stomach and colon and observing how it affected bacterial diversity. From here, different investigations have seen that families of beneficial bacteriaas Lachnospiraceae, Oscillospiraceae and Ruminococcaceaeplummet, while the growth of groups that can generate disease is favored. And we must understand that ‘good’ bacteria occupy a space in our intestine so that nothing else can ‘germinate’ there. But logically, if they disappear, they leave their ‘hole’ for other bacteria to pass through. It goes further. But beyond a bacterial imbalance, there is different research that already points to how microplastics destroy the physical barrier we have in our intestine. In this way, scientists have detected that these tiny fragments cause the generation of oxidative stress and, therefore, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which only generates great damage to the tissues. But this chemical attack also adds to mechanical damage, which some experts categorize as ‘sandpaper’, since together they manage to reduce the expression of proteins that are key to maintaining the union structure that characterizes the cells that exist in our intestinal wall. The result. If we destroy the scaffolding that maintains the ‘walls’ of our digestive system, the only thing that will be achieved is that increase intestinal permeabilityso any toxin or bacterial molecule will be able to pass from the intestine to the bloodstream, since there is no ‘wall’ that blocks the access of agents that are not wanted in our body. Logically, the passage of toxins without the control of this intestinal barrier activates our immune system defenses, which results in inflammation maintained over time that favors the destruction of tissues and also progresses in important chronic diseases. There is more. As if that were not enough, it is known that microplastics are excellent transport vehicles, since when they come into contact with our biological fluids they become covered with a “protein crown”. This is something really important, since this layer literally camouflages the microplastic and makes it easier for it to adhere to our living cells. But added to all this, we also see that they can act as the perfect support for bacteria and form what is known as biofilms. In this way, microplastic can be seen as a vehicle for external and potentially dangerous microbial communities directly to our tissues. Where are they going? If microplastics alter our barriers, logically the plastic has a free way and that is why it is capable of traveling to different organs such as, for example, the liver, kidneys or brain. And once here, research already indicates that its accumulation is related to DNA damage, deregulation of the immune system or alterations in our entire hormonal system that can lead to chronic diseases. Images | rimufilms on Freepik In Xataka | Researchers analyzed 280 samples of bottled water. Only one of the brands was free of microplastics

Turning plastic into fuel profitably was a pipe dream. A new process just made it possible

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A team from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in the United States, has achieved convert plastic bags and kitchen boards into gasoline and diesel without having to resort to high temperatures or expensive materials. The discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, has raised some eyebrows and below we tell you all the details. The problem they are trying to solve. The plastic is one of the most difficult materials to recycle profitably. Specifically, polyethylene (the polymer that makes up supermarket bags, white plastic containers or kitchen cutting boards) accumulates millions of tons in landfills each year. Until now, the only technically viable way to turn it into fuel was through a process called pyrolysis, which requires heating the material to temperatures between 450 and 500 degrees Celsius. An expensive, energy inefficient process that is difficult to scale to an industrial level. What does the new method consist of?. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have opted for a different path: introduce the plastic into a mixture of molten salts with aluminum chloride, which acts both as a solvent and as a catalyst. These salts are inorganic compounds that remain stable even under demanding reaction conditions. The key is that the aluminum atoms in the mixture bind to the polymer and generate areas of high acidity that break the long molecular chains of the plastic into smaller fragments, which are transformed into molecules typical of gasoline or diesel. And all this at less than 200 degrees Celsius, a temperature comparable to that of a conventional domestic oven. Why it represents a relevant technical leap. Beyond the reduction in temperature, the process dispenses with three elements that make traditional methods more expensive and complicated: noble metal catalysts (such as platinum), organic solvents and external contribution of hydrogen. According to Zhenzhen Yanga scientist at ORNL and one of the lead authors of the study, “this is the first time that molten salts have been used as a means to produce high value-added chemicals from waste without any catalytic initiators or solvents, and at a temperature below 200 degrees Celsius.” Gasoline efficiency reaches approximately 60% in moderate conditions, a result that the researchers themselves describe as promising for its future industrial application. As they verified that worked. To understand exactly what happens during the reaction, the team used a combination of advanced analysis techniques, including soft X-ray spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, neutron scattering, and gas chromatography. Thanks to isotopic labeling, they were able to track how carbon behaves during the process and confirm that the simplest polymer chains produce gasoline-like fuel, while the more complex ones derive into diesel molecules. By having this level of detail, the process could be optimized depending on the type of fuel you want to obtain. What remains to be resolved. The system is not ready to scale immediately. The main obstacle is that the aluminum salts used are hygroscopic, that is, they absorb moisture from the environment, which compromises their long-term stability. The team working now on ways to confine or protect these saltspossibly using halides or carbon materials, to make them more durable under real industrial conditions. Mbeyond the laboratory. If the process manages to scale successfully, the implications are considerable. Polyethylene is the most produced plastic in the world, abundant and cheap to obtain as a raw material. Aluminum salts, for their part, are low-cost commercial materials. According to Liqi Qiua postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tennessee, “the starting material is abundant in consumer waste, and our catalyst system, molten aluminum salts, is very cheap.” The result could be a cost-effective route to converting plastic waste into high-quality transportation and industrial fuels, while also clearing up our landfills. At the moment the patent is pending, so we will have to wait to find out if this remedy ends up coming to fruition. Cover image | Elbert Lora and Marek Studzinski In Xataka | An 11,000 km ring around the Moon: Japan’s incredible plan to light up the Earth

Plastic is the great recycling nightmare. Car battery acid aspires to be the great nightmare of plastic

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Have a problem with recycling. Thus, in general and even in countries that the more they try and complicate things. But, specifically, we have a problem with plastic recycling. It is a difficult and therefore expensive process, rather than producing new plastic, which leads to a scenario in which potential waste accumulates. To complicate things further, there are many types of plasticsand some are terribly difficult to recycle. But the University of Cambridge has had an idea: a solar reactor to destroy those difficult plastics. And the secret ingredient is car battery acid. The data. Before entering the ‘invention‘ from Cambridge, let’s go with some context. Recycling is not collecting, and vice versa. An example of this is Japan, a country in which there are areas in which there are 45 different categories of garbage that citizens must separate and where only 20% is recycled. In Spain, with an infinitely less obsessive systemwe are around 39%. And what is not recycled is burned in Japan and sent to landfills in Spain. Focusing on plastic and according to Cambridge researchers, the world produces 400 million tons per year and only 18% is recycled. And, as I say, there are plastics such as nylon or polyurethane that are particularly complex to recycle because their chemical structure is very resistant, which makes breaking them down complex and very expensive. plastic fulminator. This is where the discovery of the University of Cambridge comes into play. What they have developed is a solar-powered reactor that uses a very special ingredient: car battery acid. This component breaks the structural chains of the polymers into more basic chemical blocks and, therefore, easier to assimilate, such as ethylene glycol. Once the new material is obtained, a very special photocatalyst is what allows it to be converted into hydrogen and acetic acid, putting an end to that ‘rebellious’ plastic. By fluke. The team of researchers comments that the discovery was practically an accident since they knew that battery acid could be used for the process, but it was not convenient because, just as it melts plastics, it ‘eats’ the catalysts. Theirs, however, held out, and it turns out to be cheap and scalable. It is a photocatalyst composed of carbon nitride functionalized with cyanamide and integrated with molybdenum disulfide promoted with cobalt. Lots of text to say that it is a hybrid material specifically designed to remain stable in a strongly acidic environment. According to the team, it is economical and solves two problems at once: it dissolves difficult plastics and reuses battery acid that usually ends up as waste after extracting its lead content for resale. Future. In the tests, the team points out that the system has worked for more than 260 hours without losing performance and works with the aforementioned plastics, but also with that of the plastic bottles They are also not particularly easy to deal with. They claim that their discovery offers a potential cost reduction in recycling tasks because, in addition, reusable hydrogen is produced in the process. The key here is finding a way to collect the battery acid before it is neutralized for uninterrupted use to break down plastics. The team comments that they do not promise to solve the problem, but they demonstrate how waste can become a resource. new life. This approach approaches the problem from the angle of decomposition, but there are other proposals to give these plastics a second life. Because ‘melting’ them may be expensive, but if they are put into presses they can be turned directly into bricks or paving stones for the streets. This is what Nzambi Matee proposes, a Kenyan materials engineer who has proposed convert that waste into construction material. Like the University of Cambridge experiment, it addresses two problems at the same time: recycling and creating necessary non-polluting construction elements, and this idea is catching on because the authorities have given the green light to use this 2.0 brick to pave the streets of Nairobi. Returning to battery acid, the business arm of the University of Cambridge is looking to commercialize the company, but now the most complicated thing remains: making it a standard. Images | Cambridge University (Beverly Low) In Xataka | The big problem with nuclear energy has always been its waste. Russia can now recycle them up to five times

To survive the end of oil, China has resurrected an old German technology from World War II: turning coal into plastic

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While the world assumes that China’s energy transition is based exclusively on solar panels and electric vehicles — and, in part, it is, consolidating as the first great ‘electrostate’—, reality hides a much darker side. Faced with the outbreak of the Third Gulf War, Beijing has not even flinched. Beyond its immense strategic oil reserves, the secret of its resistance lies in an even more daring maneuver: the resurrection of German technology from World War II. An old German technology. Faced with the instability of oil imports, China has perfected the use of coal to produce petrochemical products. This synthesis technology (historically known as the process of fischer–Tropsch) was originally developed by Germany to sustain its military economy during World War II. Although it is widely known in the chemical industry, its main defect has always been the enormous pollution it generated. China has improved it. Far from settling for an outdated process, Chinese researchers have radically improved it. According to the state agency Xinhuaa team from Peking University has achieved a historic breakthrough by adding a minimal amount of methyl bromide (five parts per million) to the catalytic process. This surgically “turns off” the pathway that forms carbon dioxide as a byproduct, reducing these emissions from 30% to less than 1% and opening the door to near-green manufacturing to convert coal-derived synthesis gas (syngas) into olefins, the building blocks of plastics. At an industrial level, expansion is already a fact. As detailed South China Morning Postin Turpan prefecture (Xinjiang), construction has just begun on the world’s largest coal-to-ethylene glycol (a toxic compound used for plastics and antifreeze) project, with an astonishing capacity of 2.4 million tons per year. Even, as the magazine highlighted ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineeringresearch is being carried out on how to integrate this process (called PFTO) to chemically recycle tons of plastic waste, converting it into syngas and then back into light olefins. Did you see it coming? It is not the first time that China decides to take sides and prevent rather than cure. The Asian giant has decided to completely decouple its industry from maritime vulnerabilities and Western influence. “This is not China’s war, but Beijing began preparing for it years ago,” points out The New York Times. Everything accelerated during Donald Trump’s first term, prompting President Xi Jinping to demand complete “self-sufficiency” that would insulate China from any disruption to foreign supply chains. Time has proven them right. The war in Iran has brutally increased the price of crude oil, suffocating international petrochemical competitors that depend on black gold. In contrast, local Chinese coal has only gotten cheaper. According to Reutersthis has been a financial triumph: shares of companies such as Ningxia Baofeng Energy, which produces millions of tons of chemicals from coal, have risen 30% since the start of the conflict, while traditional Asian refiners such as Rongsheng Petrochemical have lost up to 27% of their stock market value. Furthermore, the Chinese media analyzed by Carbon Brief They insist on a unanimous nationalist message: in the face of a real emergency, coal is the only resource that the nation truly controls, acting as the great “ballast” guarantor of its national security. A change to other sectors. The change is undeniable. As revealed Bloombergthe country’s main coal miner, China Shenhua Energy, has cut its overall budget by 16%, but has almost doubled its investment in coal-to-chemical conversion, from 2.5 billion to 4.1 billion yuan by 2026. But at a devouring pace, as The New York Times provides information that measures the phenomenon: in 2020, China used 155 million tons of coal to manufacture chemicals; by 2024, the figure jumped to 276 million, and in 2025 it grew another 15%, single-handedly exceeding the total annual coal consumption of the entire United States. The research center CREATE confirms this trend in its reportconfirming that the use of coal in the chemical industry grew by 20% year-on-year only in the first half of 2025. Added to this is that, as the American media explains80% of Chinese nitrogen fertilizer (a third of the world’s supply) is already made with coal rather than oil or gas, allowing Beijing to keep its product at less than half the global market price. Behind it there is a very high cost. All this bold industrial maneuver has a severe climate cost that is already setting off international alarms. China’s draft 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) has set extremely cautious climate goals. As the experts explain CREATE and collect Financial Timesthe set goal of reducing carbon intensity by only 17% is “disappointing” and leaves room for the country’s emissions to continue growing between 3% and 6% in real terms over the next five years. This new government plan de facto reverses the international promise to “phase down” coal consumption, replacing it with a consumption “plateau” and explicitly protecting the large-scale expansion of the coal-based petrochemical industry. Only chemical projects already planned to be built between now and 2029 could increase China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 2%. The forecasts are resounding. According to Bloomberg, By 2030, China’s chemical roadmap will massively stop using oil as a primary fuel (thanks to the adoption of its electric vehicles) and will take advantage of its modernized facilities to seek 85% self-sufficiency in all advanced materials and chemicals, displacing traditional giants. A feared crisis of overcapacity. The European ideas laboratory MERICS warns of collateral consequences: The Chinese domestic economy, with consumer confidence stagnant since the pandemic, has no way to absorb all this gigantic new production of materials and plastics. As a direct result, Chinese factories are forced to export their immense surpluses to the rest of the world at fire sale prices. This aggressive price war propelled China’s trade surplus to a stratospheric record of $1.2 trillion in 2025. According to the complaint MERICSthese massive exports are cannibalizing the industrial base of other nations; In the European Union alone, up to 500 manufacturing jobs are being lost daily due to the total … Read more

the main ingredient is the plastic of the shampoo bottle

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We have been wanting for years retire to traditional brick. This piece that has been the pivot on which civilizations have been built has ended up becoming a headache. The same thing happens to us with him concrete: It’s easy, cheap, but very polluting. That is why there are universities, organizations and even agencies like DARPA investigating to find alternatives. A young woman in Kenya believes she has found -another- solution: plastic. And it is a very interesting 2×1. plastic bricks. Nzambi Matee is a young Kenyan materials engineer who founded her company Gjenge Makers with one goal: turning the numerous plastic waste into bricks. Whoever says bricks says any urban element such as paving stones, tiles or manhole covers. The idea is to address the plastic waste crisis in Nairobi while trying to provide a solution to the need for eaffordable building supplies. And, also, giving work to women and young people belonging to vulnerable communities. The process. To create these plastic bricks, Matee was experimenting with different formulas until he found one that achieved the right properties. To do this, it mixes the plastic with sand into a whole that is heated and compressed to form solid blocks. With the right proportions, they calculate that the plastic bricks are five times more resistant than traditional ones. When that step has been completed, the mixture is introduced into an extruder where it is heated, with the plastic reaching the melting point, but without chemically degrading. The material is then poured into molds and a hydraulic press compacts to achieve both a high density and the desired shape. When it cools, it is removed from the mold and we now have a batch of bricks. Properties. The result is a material that, according to those responsible, has good thermal resistance as it has a melting point of more than 350 degrees. For paving streets in Nairobi, this is an important detail because it ensures that it will maintain its shape under normal use. They also do not crack as “easily” as a conventional brick while maintaining some flexibility. What uses? Well…anyone that involves the use of a traditional brick. Apart from the cases mentioned, you can also pave sidewalks, patios, parking lots or as decoration, since they can be designed in various colors. Tackling the plastic problem. Many times we have echoed the so-called ‘neobridrillos’. There are a lot of materials, plastic being a common component to address the recycling problembut There are also cane ones, for example. And we always say the same thing: they are interesting, but they cannot be used because they are not approved. The difference is that the Kenya Bureau of Standards is responsible for legitimizing use for urban and residential projects in the country, and Gjenge Makers’ plastic bricks have obtained permits. Examples of use The plastics they use are also those that can be left out of the recycling circuit. Kenya, with 95% of its waste recyclable, but where only 5% are recycled, it is not the most committed country in the world in this sense (in fact, it is one of the great pending tasks of the planet). And the plastics used are common: HDPE -high-density polyethylene-, LDPE -low-density polyethylene- and PP -polypropylene-. They are widely present in shopping bags, wrappers, detergent bottles, ropes, buckets and many other containers that simply end up in traditional trash. According to the startup’s numbers, since the start of the project in 2020, 200 tons of plastic waste have been used to convert it into construction material. Beyond the brick. But something that we also often say is that it is one thing for the invention to be ready and work… and quite another for it to be consolidated as a new construction material. Because other elements such as the cost per unit or the economic interests of the traditional industry come into play there. And something that is also important is the social impact of the company. According to its website, it provides direct and indirect employment to more than 600 people. They are linked to the collection, classification and manufacturing of the product, and a large part of the workforce is women and young people who find it difficult to participate in other economic activities. In the end, it is a project that is located at the intersection between the circular economy, sustainable urbanism and social inclusion. And it is a nice program, but as we say, there are more and more sustainable bricks, but in the end we continue to choose the most polluting process. Images | Gjenge Makers In Xataka | We have just reinvented the brick. It is just as it was millennia ago

the dangerous TikTok trend of chewing food with plastic that camouflages an eating disorder

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Eating something that we love very much, but without adding a single calorie to the diet, seems like something that resembles a true miracle, but the reality is that in China social networks are being flooded with a method that promises this. And we are not dealing with something revolutionary to trick the brain, but rather eating food wrapped in plastic. Something that has been baptized like ‘plastic eating’ as El País has reported. How it started. This trend has been with us for a short time, and the origin is in Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Here the videos showed young people placing a piece of plastic wrap over your mouth or wrapping food in plastic and then chewing and spitting it out. The goal here is to taste high-calorie foods without swallowing them so as not to gain weight. Extended. The algorithm worked its usual magic, and the trend has quickly spread to other countries, even reaching TikTok, where this new challenge has been replicated. And when you start with this trigger in a new population, logically you have to take into account the risks of replicating it and turning it into something viral. Especially focused on adolescents, who may be more vulnerable in these situations. Its consequence. Beyond how bizarre it is to put plastic in your mouth to enjoy the flavor, but not have the effect of the calories, the more immediate physical damage must be considered. One of the most striking, related to repeatedly chewing a packaging that has not been designed for human consumption, carries a very high risk of suffocation and also dental damage. But we must not forget that we are chewing plastic here, so there is a risk of ingesting toxins. Different medical and scientific sources warn that these practices can expose us to the consumption of microplastics, which we have already been able to talk a lot about, as they are present in some important organs such as the placenta or testicles. Something that little by little is being related to hormonal disruption. Psychological risks. Without a doubt, it is another of the most important risks that we must take into account here, since what the networks sell as a trick to reduce the cravings we have throughout the day, is actually a classic symptom of eating disorders or eating disorders. In the clinical setting, it is known as ‘chewing and spitting’, which is a very common compensatory behavior in the diagnosis of anorexia and bulimia. It is not a new idea, since the iconic designer Karl Lagerfeld popularized and defended publicly this technique years ago after losing between 30 and 40 kilos. However, science denies that it has real benefits, since different studies suggest that when we chew food, the body prepares for digestion and increases the levels of ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. But in reality, by not receiving food, hunger and anxiety are triggered, causing a severe loss of control, metabolic alterations and malnutrition. Social networks. The proliferation of these types of trends puts the role of social networks in the mental health of young people back on the table. Scientific data provided by recent studies indicate, for example, that exposure to content that promotes anorexia on TikTok significantly decreases body satisfaction in a matter of minutes, increasing the internalization of “thin ideals.” It has also been proven that 73% of young users with moderate or high risk of suffering from an ED show symptoms directly related to their interaction on TikTok. Images | Clown World In Xataka | We believed that extreme thinness was a fashion that had happily been overcome. What is happening on networks contradicts us

Texas has the same problem of sinkholes and potholes as Spain but believes it has the solution: plastic roads

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It is barely one kilometer but the promise is enormous: converting the roads into a huge plastic recycling plant. Testing began at the University of Texas at Arlington (United States) promulgated by Sahadat Hossaincivil engineer and director of the Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability at the University of Texas, but they have already taken the leap to the road. Hossain tells the story in The Conversationwhere he explains that the project was born from his obsession with recycling plastic. The engineer points out that he grew up in a low-income neighborhood of Bangladesh and that there he observed that people who lived closer to the landfills suffered more health problems than those who lived a little further away. His childhood experience has focused much of his research, focusing on the impact of materials on the environment and possible solutions for recycling them. Among the most complicated to recycle and, without a doubt, the most used: plastic. Now, under their research, in the United States they have launched a project to use plastics used in the construction of roads. And the results are being successful. Harder and more resistant In Texas they have a problem: it’s hot. Very hot, in fact. When building a road, taking the climate into account is essential. ANDIn warmer places, harder bitumens are needed. because they tolerate heat better. The problem is that asphalt also becomes more fragile and breaks more easily. The problems are even more pronounced if a wave of bad weather with a lot of water hits a fragile pavement, as has happened in Spain. A solution could go through make the asphalt a little more elastic but this has an intrinsic problem. And if the asphalt is more elastic, it also resists heat less well and in the harshest months it can soften and melt, as has happened to the United Kingdom in recent years. But this is, always, if we use traditional methods. What Sahadat Hossain’s team is testing is injecting plastics into the bitumen that binds the mixture of stones and sand that makes up the asphalt. At the moment, they are trying to inject plastics that make up between 8 and 10% of the bitumen mixture that binds the rest of the materials. It may not seem like a lot but, according to Hossain, at a test site near Dallas they used 4.5 tons of plastics that came from single-use plastic bags or bottles that were discarded to build a mile. It is a not insignificant amount if we think that we are talking about building about 1,600 meters of road while giving a new use to a material that produces about 400 million tons a year and of which barely 10% is recycled. To be useful, the process requires shred plastic until you get a very fine material that can melt with the bitumen and thus not leave elements in the air. And the result is being good. The first tests were done in university parking lot but they have already been scaling the project to roads with intense road traffic. According to their experience, the asphalt continues to resist heat (with good performance on days that exceeded 100º Fahrenheit, almost 38ºC) and is more flexible than with the traditional system, which reduces the risk of cracks and fractures. Point at The Conversationthat one of these tests has also been carried out in Bangladesh, where a heat wave caused more cracks and fractures in traditional roads while this road with plastics suffered much less wear. It is, therefore, good news when it comes to extend the useful life of the pavement and save money on maintenance. The good news is that the project is monitoring all the results with high traffic volume roads (also the adverse ones such as the possible emission of microplastics when vehicles pass by). And this test is by no means the first. In Rotterdam there was already talk of building these roads with recycled plastics a decade ago. However, its fatigue is much lower. The advantage here is that its performance can be studied under constant and high-tonnage traffic. Photo | The University of Texas at Arlington In Xataka | Until 2020, Spain had the most praised roads in Europe. Now it has something else: a hole of 13,000 million euros

This new biodegradable material is much more than a simple substitute for plastic

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He used oil that we generate in the kitchen it seems that has no more life than end up discarded, but the reality is very different. The Holy Grail, right now of modern materials science, is to get rid of the oil dependencebut also solve the problem of the waste we already generate. And this is something that has become evident with fryer oil, which now has a new function: being an adhesive. A progress. A team from the University of South Carolina has killed two birds with one stone with a surprising solution: transform the fryer oil into a material that imitates polyethylenebut it is biodegradable and adhesive. But this adhesive is so strong that it has even managed to tow a car using only two steel plates joined with this material. The oil problem. The plastic we use in our daily lives is polyethylene, which is cheap, flexible and resistant. But it has a serious problem: it is of fossil origin and with how difficult its degradation is makes it contribute to global pollution. On the other hand, we have used cooking oil. It is estimated that we generate about 3.8 billion liters per year worldwideand although it is used to produce biodiesel or lubricant, converting it into high-performance thermoplastics was a barely explored field due to the complexity of its chemical composition. Breaking down the fat. What the team led by Chuanbing Tang and Olga Kuksenok has achieved It is not simply “recycling” the oilbut to deconstruct it and reassemble it at the molecular level. And this is something fundamental, since you can take advantage of both the fatty acids and the glycerol that are part of this fat. By polymerizing these components, they created aliphatic polyesters that almost perfectly imitate the mechanical properties of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), the plastic we commonly use in bags and packaging. A new material. The surprise came when the result of this experiment did not generate a traditional polyethylene that is inert, but rather this new material derived from oil has chemical groups that can act as molecular ‘hooks’. That is, it can stick like glue. The research wanted to demonstrate its adhesive capacity on different surfaces such as stainless steel, copper, wood or cardboard. And the results were surprising, since in cut resistance tests it surpassed other renowned commercial adhesives, and could even be used as a silicone gun to seal boxes. Moving a car. Without a doubt this is the litmus test that wanted to demonstrate that used oil has great strength behind it. To do this, they joined two steel plates with this polymer and used them to pull a four-door sedan uphill. The union in this case held without any problem. The importance. This is a big step towards the circular economy. We are not just talking about making a “less bad” plastic, but about creating new materials with high added value, such as their ability to glue the waste we have in the kitchen. And in many things it can be difficult to recycle. Imagine a future where the oil from today’s French fries becomes the bumper on your car or the sticker on your next Amazon package, only to be processed again without ending up in a landfill. This is precisely what science is trying to achieve to increase recycling strategies and dependence on fossil resources. Images | Zoshua Colah Scott Sanker In Xataka | We have been thinking for decades that plastic recycling was worth something. Maybe we were wrong

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