As Popular Science has reported before, plastic is a big problem: microplastics have shown up in our poop and in Arctic sea ice; as plastics degrade they spill out greenhouse gases; and of course, they hang around forever. Single-use plastics, most of which aren’t recycled and have a habit of evading landfills, pose a particularly big problem. But these plastics, which can be found in everything from disposable coffee cups and cutlery to Q-tips, are ubiquitous.