NATURE

Fancy a swim in… plastic? Scientists warn our oceans will contain more plastics than fish (by weight) by 2050 when the production of plastic packaging will exceed 250 million metric tonnes. Currently around 26 billion tonnes of plastic waste are generated every year in Europe alone. Worse still is that more than 70 % of this waste is not recycled. Most of the disposed plastics cannot be recycled and are not degradable. The EU-funded NATURE project is working on an innovative research training programme, which will be at the starting lines of the circular economy. For instance, it will boost knowledge about the synthesis of new biobased polymeric materials where the polymers are designed based on their performance and their recyclability.