The picnic tables inside Plastic Lumber Co.'s warehouse look solid and durable, as if they were crafted by a master carpenter using thick lumber and a sharp saw. But they weren't built from redwood or ...

Expand your understanding of food systems as a Civil Eats member. Enjoy unlimited access to our groundbreaking reporting, engage with experts, and connect with a community of changemakers. We ask a ...

Demand for wood-plastic composite and plastic lumber in the United States is forecast to expand 11 percent per year through 2009 to $3.5 billion, according to a study by Cleveland-based market ...

A large pile of plastic bottles and cans collected on a street corner in downtown Manhattan, New York. A large pile of plastic bottles and cans collected on a street corner in downtown Manhattan, New ...

I’m a dedicated recycler. I fret when I see people throwing garbage in with soda cans and empty water bottles. I’ve even been known to rescue recyclables from the trash — at my house, for sure, but ...

Every now and then, I check in with our recycling hauler to uncover the rogue items sneaking into recycling carts or drop-off spots, where they absolutely do not belong. The top five offenders ...

Recycling polyolefin plastics is inefficient and costly because their strong bonds make them hard to break down and require tedious pre-sorting. The future of plastic recycling may soon get much less ...

The Hefty ReNew bags are pulled off the recycling line at Rumpke and dumped down an orange chute to be sent to Hefty for recycling. It's been a year since Rumpke began accepting additional flexible ...

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Last year, I became obsessed with a plastic cup. It was a small container that held diced fruit, the type thrown into lunch boxes. And it was the ...