Should companies have to recover their plastic?

September 14, 2015, 5gyres.org | “5 Gyres sat with the president of ASIPLA, the Chilean version of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the company Cambiaso, the largest plastic bag recycler in South America to hear how they want to frame the National Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bill. We heard familiar arguments about waste management and recycling and opposition to product bans. The big questions is: is the role of brand manufacturers to get their stuff back.”

Willandsusan Revak shared a photo to GoodNews FortheEarth‘s Timeline.
Thank you for accepting my friend request! Here is a subject I am passionate about:
HUGE NEWS! California microbead bill AB 888 has just passed the senate and will now go forward to become law! No more microbeads in CA! THANK YOU so much to all you guys for calling! Hurray!
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Sweden is Now Recycling 99 Percent of its Trash. Here’s how

 

September 4, 2014, https://goodnewsfortheearth.org | ” The Scandinavian nation of Sweden has set a new precedent in the world of recycling its trash, with a near zero waste amount of 99 percent. Sweden was already ahead of the game back in 2012, when they were recycling 96 percent of their trash, but the three percent jump in just two years is quite impressive.”

 Ami Linden

Sweden has made a very strict recycling policy that has reduced the amount of trash that is put into landfill to 1%.

 

  • Artista Tierra Elizabeth, Connie Ashby, Merle Hayward

United Nations University Invents Machine to Recycle Plastics into Car Oil (Video)

April 3, 3015, www.facebook.com

This is a great invention. Yes, I think we should find a different alternative to power than oil and gasoline but this, I think, is a decent small stepping stone. At least this will help with the plastic problem for the time being!
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Why conservationists need a little hope: saving themselves from becoming the most depressing scientists on the planet

August 19, 2014, news.mongabay.com | “Here’s a challenge: take a conservationist out for a drink and ask them about their work. Nine times out of ten—or possibly more—you’ll walk away feeling frustrated, despondent, and utterly hopeless. You’ll hear about rainforests being chopped down for palm oil or chopsticks; or a just-discovered species that probably just went extinct; or a government that is worse than ambivalent: corrupt; or a shadowy corporation that’s doing some horrific thing to ecosystems and local people just to make greedy shareholders happy.”

Here’s a great article about why to support the kind of cheerleading that we do at Good News for the Earth —
interviews with top conservation biologists
Why conservationists need a little hope
news.mongabay.com
the human brain is wired to try harder only when there is reason to believe that those efforts will make a difference. — The Sword of Damocles over our head is not the right image
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This Restaurant Is Serious About Garbage—It Doesn’t Produce Any

April 24, 2014, www.takepart.com | “The average restaurant tosses eight gallons of garbage every hour. At Chicago’s Sandwich Me In, it took two years to produce that much.”

This Restaurant Is Serious About Garbage—It Doesn’t Produce Any
www.takepart.com

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Plastic bag bans are spreading in the United States

April 22, 2014, www.treehugger.com | “Los Angeles rang in the 2014 New Year with a ban on the distribution of plastic bags at the checkout counter of big retailers, making it the largest of the 132 cities and counties around the United States with anti-plastic bag legislation. And a movement that gained momentum in California is going national.”

“Plastic bag bans are spreading in the United States
www.treehugger.com
More than 20 million Americans live in communities with plastic bag…”
  • COMMENTS:
  • Connie Ashby “it figures plastic shopping bags were first popularized by Mobil Oil in the 1970s in an attempt to increase its market for polyethylene, a fossil-fuel-derived compound…glad to see we’re starting to get rid of them”

Largest Cleanup in EPA History Proposed

April 14, 2014, www.enn.com | “In an historic action that will protect people’s health and the environment, and benefit riverfront communities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan to remove 4.3 million cubic yards of highly contaminated sediment from the lower eight miles of the Passaic River in New Jersey. The sediment in the Passaic River is severely contaminated with dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), heavy metals, pesticides and other contaminants from more than a century of industrial activity. Ninety percent of the volume of contaminated sediments in the lower Passaic are in the lower eight miles of the river.”

Largest Cleanup in EPA History Proposed for the from the lower eight miles, Passaic River, N.J.
www.enn.com
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In San Francisco, Plastic Bottles Going the Way of Plastic Bags

In San Francisco, Plastic Bottles Go the Way of Plastic Bags with City BanMarch 7, 2014, www.takepart.com | “Bottled water is no longer welcome in San Francisco.  The City by the Bay earlier this week scored yet another environmental first when legislators there unanimously voted to end the sale and distribution of plastic bottled water on municipal property—a move that will bring the city nearer its goal of diverting all its waste from landfill or incineration by 2020.”

“Good News for San Francisco!
In San Francisco, Plastic Bottles Going the Way of Plastic Bags
www.takepart.com
City ban on world’s most unnecessary item goes into effect later this year.”

Waste Facility to Triple the Amount of Trash Recycled

January 15, 2014, www.enn.com | “A new plant in Glendale, Arizona promises to triple the amount of trash the city recycles each year when it begins operations in April. The facility, which is being built by Chicago-based company, Vieste, will be located on 6 acres of Glendale’s landfill, just a few miles west of the University of Phoenix stadium.”

Step-by-step, small local actions gradually add up to a major change.
Glendale, Arizona: Waste Facility to Triple the Amount of Trash Recycled
www.enn.com
ENN.com: Environmental News Network — Know Your Environment

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors prepares a draft to ban plastic bags

Good news! The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted to direct staff to prepare a draft plastic bag ban ordinance. There was great support and little controversy.

The board discussed a bit the challenges of packing meat and/or vegetables and bulk products and it is expected that staff will take these challenges into consideration as they draft the ordinance.

Chuck Schager, Eel River Disposal and Resource Recovery, explained the challenges associated with recycling plastic bags, noting that the lower quality plastic film (dark, colored plastics) have been nearly impossible to recycle for several months and that there are approximately 67 tons of this type of plastic sitting on the floor in Fortuna waiting to move.

I commented briefly and let them know that in little more than 24 hours we gathered more than 90 (!!!) signatures from the public encouraging them to move in this direction. I let them know the people were behind them as they work to ban plastic bags.

Be sure to thank your supervisor for their vote! And a special thanks to Supervisor Fennell for making the motion and to Supervisor Lovelace for the second.

I will let you all know when the draft ordinance is available for review and continue to follow this issue.

And, don’t forget: you can ban plastic bags in your life at any time simply by not accepting them at stores! Your actions will have an impact.

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