The polymer beads, aka hydrogels, you mention — which also come in crystal form — are sold as garden soil additives because they’re super-duper absorbent (head over here for a scientific ...

Cheap plastic beads often end up in landfills and can clog up the city’s 100-year-old drainage system. That’s led to more calls to ditch them altogether.

“These sounds you hear are seeds inside of the beads, so this will allow plants and flowers to essentially come out of these Mardi Gras beads,” said LSU graduate student researcher Alexis Strain.

He added that remediation crews are working to try to clean up the beads, which are about the size of a grain of rice. He said the fire was spotted around 1 a.m. by a Humble police officer who was ...

A South Florida environmental technology company has a plan to fight the state's blue-green algae problems with microscopic plastic beads. Green Water Solution is one of four finalists for the ...