Would you like some salad with your plastic fork? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Down on Science, saying… Shampoo bottles! Straws! Legos! Plastic is all around us, and A LOT of it ends up in oceans and lakes. Over time, plastic waste breaks into tiny pieces
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Plastic Protection
Yikes – dropped your smartphone in the toilet… again?!! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying… Wouldn’t it be great if our precious devices were water-proof? Or even better – LIQUID and STAIN proof? Meet Paul Leu and his research team from the University of
Continue readingFantastic Plastic
Reduce, Reuse… Refashion? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Plastics are everywhere – our homes, offices, and sadly our environment. They don’t break down easily so they accumulate in oceans and landfills. So don’t forget to recycle! But how else can we limit our litter?
Continue readingPlastic for Dinner
Just say “no” to plastic straws. Think of the turtles! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science Plastic is everywhere – in packaging, fast-food containers … dirt?! Yes, dirt! Farmers sometimes mix plastic chips with mulch to improve plant growth. But the plastic stays in our
Continue readingPlastic, Heal Thyself!
Family potluck, plate of fixin’s. . . Another plastic fork bites the dust! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Plastic items break every day, from phone cases to prosthetics. If only they could fix themselves! Traditional plastic is like a long chain of repeating molecular
Continue readingCoffee Rx
Ahh the smell of fresh coffee wafting from…your medicine cabinet? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Have you noticed most medicine comes in little plastic capsules? These capsules protect your drugs, but they aren’t as safe as you might hope. That’s because plastic is usually
Continue readingGarbage Gobblers
What do cockroaches and plastics have in common? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying…they both can last for THOUSANDS of years! Its estimated that there are more than five TRILLION plastic bits floating in our oceans. That’s more than the number of stars found
Continue readingFeel-Good Fingertips
I’d like the French manicure and some … fake fingertips? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and a new material with feeling. Literally! Meet Jonghwa Park, from Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. He and fellow engineers fabricated a special film out of
Continue readingWorm Dinner
Worms have a taste for coffee cups? Who knew? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Styrofoam and other plastics can take over hundreds of years to degrade. Yeesh! Is there a way to make them go away faster? Stanford researchers may have a solution –
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