Menstrual products are essential for health, hygiene, and wellbeing, enabling millions of people to manage menstruation safely and participate fully in daily life. However, while these products provide important benefits, many commonly used disposable options also have significant environmental impacts, particularly through plastic pollution. Disposable menstrual products such as sanitary pads, tampons, and their applicators are often made from a combination of cotton, wood p

Plastic is often seen as a miracle material. It certainly has useful properties: it’s durable, versatile and cheap. But what exactly is plastic? Plastics are moldable materials made up of polymers – long chains made from repeating molecules. Almost all plastics are derived from fossil fuels such as crude oil and natural gas. These contain a mixture of hydrocarbons which are processed in various stages to make plastic: Refining - Fossil fuels are extracted and refined into pro

Ready meals have been around since the 1950s. Yet the plastic packaging used in them is harmful to the planet and to people. Greenpeace’s recent analysis of 24 research papers in leading scientific journals found that plastic packaging used for ready meals and takeaways poses a potentially serious risk for human health. The packaging, especially when heated, can release large amounts of microplastics and chemicals into the food that will be eaten. One study detected 326,000

Founded in 1919, the French company Danone includes brands Evian, Activia, Actimel, Volvic, Alpro, and more. In 2020, it sold products in 120 countries with global sales reaching 23.6 billion euros, making it one of the world’s top ten largest plastic packaging producers. Danone claims to be committed to producing products that preserve the planet’s resources whilst also growing its business. This article will examine how committed Danone really is to reducing its plastic foo

The petrochemical industry has long championed chemical recycling as the solution to the global plastics crisis. The pitch is straightforward: instead of sending plastic waste to landfill or incineration, break it down chemically back into raw materials and start again. Clean, circular, elegant. The reality is considerably messier. Chemical recycling works primarily through a process called pyrolysis. Plastic waste is heated in the absence of oxygen to produce an oil that can

You have swapped your plastic bags and ditched the straws. But there is a source of pollution you cannot opt out of, and it’s happening on every road in Britain, every single day. Although we call them rubber, modern vehicle tyres are actually made from a complex blend of synthetic materials, chemicals and polymers. Every time a car pulls away from the lights, it leaves something behind; not just exhaust fumes, but thousands of microscopic plastic particles, shed from the tyr

Considered one of the greatest environmental risks to health, air pollution is laden with fine particulate matter that causes cardiovascular and respiratory disease, cancers, and substantial mortality. Cleaning up our air demands concerted action by local, national, and international level policy makers. A 2023 briefing from the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) examined claims and assumptions about the health impacts of ‘Energy from Waste’ incinerators,

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a large and diverse group of synthetic chemicals that have been widely used for decades. They are found in many everyday products, including water-repellent clothing, food packaging, furniture, and nonstick cookware. These chemicals do not break down in the environment, and once released, they can bioaccumulate for years or even decades, contaminating soil, water, and wildlife for generations unless active measures are taken to r