Tag: Recycling

Reports: Electric vehicles – 3 articles

BBC: Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries? While electric vehicles (EVs) may not emit any carbon dioxide during their working lives, he’s concerned about what happens when they run out of road – in particular what happens to the batteries. “In 10 to 15 years when there are large numbers coming to the end of their life, it’s going to be very important that we have a recycling industry,” he points out.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Electric vehicles to go from 11 million to 145 million in nine years, says IEA. And there could be even more electric vehicles on the road by 2030 if policymakers were to give them a jumpstart; a newly released report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found that there could be as many as 230 million electric vehicles worldwide by 2030 if governments agreed to accelerate their efforts to encourage  production of the low-carbon vehicles—vital to staying within the global climate target.

Axios: To combat climate change, electric cars have to be cheaper. Teslas, which make up more than 70% of the electric-car market, have even wealthier drivers, with average incomes of more than $300,000, Hardman’s research has found. (Multiple requests for comment to Tesla were not returned.)

Are Compostable Bags Really Compostable? What You Need to Know This Int’l Compost Awareness Week

Green Matters: Are Compostable Bags Really Compostable? What You Need to Know This Int’l Compost Awareness Week. May 2 through May 8, 2021 marks International Compost Awareness Week — an annual week-long educational initiative to get more people composting their food scraps. Composting is a fantastic way to reduce your environmental impact and become closer to zero waste, but there can be a lot of confusion when beginning your composting journey.

We have endless guides to composting on Green Matters, including exactly what composting is, how to build an indoor compost bin, how to build an outdoor backyard compost bin, how to prepare compost for gardening, and more. But when first starting out, many wonder if compostable bags are actually compostable, or if that’s just a marketing term.

So in honor of International Compost Awareness Week’s goal of educating people on composting, read on for everything you need to know about the difference between compostable and biodegradable bags, plus a few of the best truly compostable bags on the market.

COMMENTARY: Cartons pave the way to fix struggling recycling system

Free Lance-Star: COMMENTARY: Cartons pave the way to fix struggling recycling system. SOME municipalities across the U.S. are struggling to sustain recycling programs that maximize the materials that can be placed in curbside bins. From New York to Washington State, Alabama to Utah, Arkansas to Arizona, and numerous points in between, localities have weighed trimming back their recycling efforts, underscoring broad-based dysfunction.

Why it’s so hard to eliminate plastic from the supply chain

Fast Company: Why it’s so hard to eliminate plastic from the supply chain. Everlane eradicated 90% of virgin plastic from its company. But it’s struggling to tackle the last 10%, mirroring challenges other companies face in trying to get rid of plastic waste altogether. It’s really hard to create buttons, sneaker soles, spandex, and zipper teeth without virgin plastic. Just ask Everlane.

In 2018, the fashion label made a radical commitment to eliminate all virgin plastic from its supply chain by the end of 2021. As Everlane approaches the deadline, the brand has cut out 90% of virgin plastic, but the remaining 10% is proving tricky, as global recycling and manufacturing systems are not set up to address specialized objects (such as zipper teeth).

THE PLASTIC PROBLEM

There is good reason for Everlane to focus on that last 10%. Creating plastic from oil generates carbon emissions, which accelerates climate change. Once the material is made, it does not biodegrade, so it stays in our landfills and oceans for hundreds of years, breaking into microscopic fragments that end up in our food chain. While consumers tend to be aware of the plastic in their straws, food packaging, or grocery bags, many are not aware that much of their closet is also made up of plastic, since synthetic materials, such as spandex and polyester, are plastic. “We wanted to draw attention to fashion’s plastic problem,” says Michael Preysman, Everlane’s CEO. “But we also wanted to see if it was possible to cut out new plastic from our supply chain, relying instead on the abundance of plastic that already exists on the planet.”

3 things that could improve America’s recycling problem

Good Morning America: 3 things that could improve America’s recycling problem.

Many of us crush LaCroix cans, break down cardboard boxes and try really hard to get all that peanut butter out of the jar to put it in the recycling bin instead of the trash — a small victory for the environment. Or is it?

We’ve been told recycling is a great, green solution for our planet, but according to experts, our recycling system as it currently stands is broken.

“A lot of what’s happening in America right now with recycling plastic is that it’s actually going directly to landfills,” White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council member Jerome Foster II told “Good Morning America.”

Tool: Yale Climate Connections, April 16, 2021

Articles include: 12 books on repairing our relationship with our only planet;  How addressing climate change can also improve public health;  Researchers examine how world-apart ice sheets influence each other;  New York City group retrofits apartments without displacing residents;  Trees planted along Colorado’s Yampa River will help protect it in hot, dry weather;  What can you do with old wind turbine blades? One option: Upcycle them;  Managers of Assateague Island prepare for more sea-level rise, worsening storms;  Online tool helps people make their homes energy efficient. 

The Daily Climate, April 14, 2021

Articles include: clean energy focus; blue carbon credits; John Kerry off to China; Glacier in Alaska is moving; Mexico & coal; Cost of rechargeable batteries; Brazil & Indigenous land rights; Endangered American rivers; companies call on Biden to reduce GHGs.

The Daily Climate, April 7, 2021

Articles include: Gretta Thunberg; racism; green goals and the power grid; old batteries & electric vehicles; outdated rainfall data; Canadian coal mine; sea meadows; Chevron climate goals; Antarctic ice shelves collapse; Florida & sea level rise.

Recycling is an outdated solution — it’s time for a circular economy

The Hill: Recycling is an outdated solution — it’s time for a circular economy. Plastic in America will continue invading our landfills, floating in our oceans, and contaminating our bodies as long as we are stuck in the 20th-century linear economic mindset of “take-make-waste.”  What the 21st-century needs is an intersectional approach to the plastics crisis. In March, the Break Free from Plastic Act of 2021 (BFFPA) was reintroduced to Congress, targeting the chemicals and plastics industries for their role in pollution and landfilling. The bill argues for increasing recycling rates, shifting financial responsibility for recycling and waste management systems to upstream producers, and bans an expanded list of petroleum-based, single-use plastic products. This is a good starting point, but these are linear solutions that still result in wasted resources and only incremental improvements to the economic models that are fueling the climate crisis. If we are to successfully address climate change, the BFFPA must push for circular economy principles that design out the concepts of waste and pollution entirely and advance regenerative natural systems instead.

Report: The dark side of ‘green energy’ and its threat to the nation’s environment

Deseret News: The dark side of ‘green energy’ and its threat to the nation’s environment. What happens to old solar panels, windmills and high tech batteries?

Wind farms and massive arrays of solar panels are cropping up across public and private landscapes both in the United States and abroad as users increasingly turn to “green energy” as their preferred flavor of electricity.

President Joe Biden, in fact, has directed the Interior Department to identify suitable places to host 20 gigawatts of new energy from sun, wind or geothermal resources by 2024 as part of a sweeping effort to move away from a carbon-based economy and electrical grid.

But how green is green?

A briefing paper released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency predicts these startling global numbers for countries by 2050 just for solar waste: