When the tide goes out, organizers shovel up and pat down the sand to create the racing line, but such are the elements that occasional pools of surface water can remain, which some horses don't mind but others despise -- merely another nuance to the racing at Laytown.

CNN: Quick sand: Welcome to Irish beach racing at Laytown

Tests completed in the last week have shown that the researchers have been able to literally shovel in to such a reactor a wide range of mixed plastics which can then be reduced down to useful products many of which can then be retrieved by simple distillation.

FORBES: Written by Matt Hickman