Volume 10 Issue 10, October 2025

Waste management has transformed over the past half a century, from key dumping and landfilling laws in the 1970s to today’s complex policies targeting plastic waste reduction and recycling. Still, global disparities are glaring, and stronger policies, infrastructure and technology are necessary to achieve a truly circular plastics economy.

Ongoing plastics losses to marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems continue to exacerbate the global environmental crisis. Variations in data, methods and assumptions across studies have led to inconsistent estimates of plastics losses and their ecological impacts. These estimates must now be improved to develop and deliver effective interventions.

The construction industry consumes more than 40% of Earth’s raw material resources. It is time to rethink not just what we build, but how we value what is already built. Digital materials passports can help us to reuse and repurpose materials in the built environment, driving a shift towards a circular construction industry.

Current lithium-ion battery recycling extracts valuable metals while discarding much of the battery’s leftover value. An emerging strategy called direct battery regeneration upends this model, restoring the battery’s performance without taking it apart — presenting a more efficient, sustainable option for end-of-life batteries.

The transformation of municipal sludge into high-entropy single-atom catalysts offers not just a new materials synthesis route, but a new framework for how we conceive of waste, resource recovery and circularity.

Cellulose, a renewable and biodegradable biopolymer, is gaining momentum as a sustainable alternative to fossil-based materials. This Review explores how supramolecular chemistry enables the design, processing and function of cellulose nanocomposites for circular and high-performance applications.

Protein-based materials, formed through self-assembly, are gaining traction as technologically useful biomaterials. This Review surveys the design, assembly, mechanical properties, sourcing and processing of polypeptide materials, with a focus on their application as sustainable plastic alternatives.

Photocatalytic water splitting can produce renewable green solar hydrogen on a large scale at low cost. This Review surveys the development of materials, systems and processes for photocatalytic hydrogen production, aiming to help define a common vision for practical applications and facilitate collaboration among industry, government and academia.

Shape-morphing metamaterials use geometric design to achieve advantageous properties, enabling innovations in fields from robotics to wearable devices. This Review proposes a unified classification of the design principles underlying shape-morphing behaviour, discusses available design tools and highlights emerging challenges in the development of shape-morphing metamaterials.