By Nieske Vergunst To help park rangers on the Galapagos Islands clean up plastic that washes up on shore, Stefanie Ypma (postdoc at IMAU) uses floating sensors called ‘drifters’ to create a model of the complicated ocean currents in and around the archipelago. But getting those drifters into the ocean turned out to be anunexpectedly…

A quick search through your garbage bin at home will likely tell you, unsurprisingly, that a lot of your waste consists of plastic. These pieces all have a different shape, a different size, a different sturdiness. This is what makes plastic such a valuable (while being cheap) material. Its manufacturing is extremely flexible, which allows…