As plastic waste threatens to engulf our planet, increasingly unexpected alternative materials made with everything from potato starch to algae are being devised.

More than 30% of plastics are single-use, and plastic waste often does not decompose, instead piling up in a hellscape of landfill that "haunts the public imagination like a spectral wolf", said Wired.

Recycling "merely slows down the journey of plastics to landfills or oceans, where the material simply fragments into smaller and smaller bits that never completely biodegrade", said the BBC. Although recycling is a "step in the right direction", we "need to look toward plastic alternatives".

What are the alternatives?
Ecologically friendly alternatives that create circular, low-waste ecosystems include liquid wood, algae insulation and polymer substitutes made from fermented plant starch such as corn or potatoes.

These innovations could have significant long-term effects: while single-use straws made of traditional plastics can take up to 200 years to degrade, single-use straws made of bioplastic PHA degrade in just 90 days when buried in soil and 180 days in the ocean.

And the more creative solutions?
Mushrooms – or rather, natural polymers cultivated from their vegetative tissues – may one day replace materials such as "polystyrene, protective packaging, insulation" and "even leather goods", said the BBC. Urine has proved to be a useful ingredient in bricks, and stone wool from natural igneous rock can produce a fibreglass-like plastic resistant to fire and water. 

So is the waste problem being solved?
That the alternatives are "actually better for human and planetary health" is not a given, said Time. For one thing, most plant-based plastics are, "on a molecular level", the same as their "fossil-fuel-sourced siblings" and "last just as long in the environment". 

The alternative plastic world is a "minefield" of sustainability marketing that "at best is aspirational" and "at worst causes as many problems as the products it is trying to replace".

"Something weird" is going on with Melania Trump, said The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi.

The former (and possibly returning) first lady has a memoir coming out on 8 October. So far, so unsurprising. But there has been "little fanfare" around this new book, simply titled "Melania", and its contents remain a mystery.

'Sort of successful'
Rather than book tours and interviews, the new release is being teased through short videos that, in Melania's characteristic "sphinx-like style", are "somewhat cryptic", said The New York Times' Shawn McCreesh. In one, she appears dressed all in black in front of a "shadowy backdrop" and "muses conspiratorially" about the assassination attempt on her husband.

The unorthodox promotional strategy for "Melania" has been "sort of successful", said The Cut's Olivia Craighead, in that it suggests just "how weird and off-putting" the contents of the memoir may be. The cover gives nothing away, said Mahdawi: it's as "basic as you can get", comprising a black background with MELANIA in white type. Anyone willing to pay to find out what's inside can place their orders on her website, where hardcore fans can also buy a $250 (£188) collector's edition.

'Perfect timing'
The tome may well turn out to consist of little more than a "bunch of photos of fancy rugs with fanciful captions", said Mahdawi. But some speculate that Melania, who is "rumoured to hate politics and her husband", is set to unleash a no-holds-barred rundown of "where the proverbial bodies are buried". She has been decidedly publicity-shy of late, and although she appeared at the Republican convention in July, and attended two fund-raisers at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower, she remained silent throughout.

Yet while it's possible that "Melania" is a Trojan horse waiting to "sink" Donald Trump's election chances, that is almost certainly "wishful thinking" by his opponents. The truth about the 45th president may be out there, but "it's not going to be in Melania's memoir".

The timing of the release, just ahead of November's election, suggests the book is intended to help Melania's husband, said The Times's Camilla Long. "For Donald Trump it is clearly yet another attempt to woo back the Karens of America, the most crucial demographic."

"We all know a Beverley," said Nancy Durrant in The Times. The "magnificent monster" at the heart of Mike Leigh's "savage 1970s satire of the aspirational middle classes" has "never gone away".

More than four decades after "Abigail's Party" premiered, Nadia Fall's revival has opened at Stratford East. Taking on the role of Beverley is a "mesmerising" Tamzin Outhwaite, who is hosting a dinner party alongside her estate agent husband Laurence (Kevin Bishop) to welcome their new "younger, less wealthy" neighbours, Angela and Tony, to the area. Really, it's an opportunity for the older couple to flaunt their bigger house – a "glorious orange riot" designed by Peter McKintosh.

Also in attendance at the "brittle little do" is Beverley's divorced neighbour Sue (the "wonderfully subtle" Pandora Colin), whose teenage daughter Abigail is holding a punk-soundtracked house party within earshot.

Presiding over the "soiree from hell", Outhwaite puts her "own stamp" on the lead role, expertly moving between "marital carping, proprietorial fussing and predatory manoeuvring", said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. At its "vicious best", the show feels like "pre-Thatcher England’s answer to 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'"

It's not without "flaws" though, said Theo Bosanquet in What's On Stage. The ending fails to "live up to the promise of what precedes it", and parts of the script feel dated. But many lines are still "gaspingly, immortally funny", said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out, and as a "simmering study of passive-aggressive Britishness it is utterly peerless".

Until 12 October, Stratford East, London E15

Working together, Labour and the Lib Dems could exile the Tories for a generation
Martin Kettle for The Guardian
Labour and the Lib Dems could push the Tories to the "margins of politics", as the Tories and Labour "did to the Liberals in the 1920s", writes Martin Kettle. The tactical voting in July's election shows there are "millions" of voters willing to back "whichever of the two is better placed to defeat the Conservatives". Both parties should cooperate to "promote the kind of nation state and systems of governance they so largely agree on".

Let's be honest… the government is gaslighting us on working from home
Matthew Lesh for City A.M.
There is "an irony" in ministers telling private enterprises how to be more productive, when public sector productivity "has been abysmal" for decades, says Matthew Lesh. There is "nothing wrong with an employee and an employer agreeing to allow working from home", and that decision "need not be political". When it comes to working in the office or remotely", it's "not a choice between one or the other – it is about embracing both".

How the Jewish Chronicle lost its way
Josh Glancy for The New Statesman
The Jewish Chronicle "may well have facilitated the spread of disinformation" about Gaza, writes Josh Glancy. Under editor Jake Wallis Simons, the paper has taken a "more confrontational, populist direction", characterised by "fierce hawkishness on Israel" and "complaints about a lack of objectivity in reporting". In "what is sure to be a turbulent few years for British Jews", the Chronicle "has a critical role to play" – so "we need it at its best".