Chemicals

"Wearing a lab coat, Eve Vitale asked a chemistry class at Warren Mott High School if anyone had heard anything bad about plastics. Hands shot up. It doesn’t degrade, said one student. It hurts the environment, said another. But “that’s not really the plastic’s fault,” said Vitale, chief executive of the Society of Plastics Engineers Foundation, a group of industry professionals. “That’s the fault of humanity.”"

"Google and environmental group Environmental Defense Fund on Wednesday unveiled a partnership to expose sources of climate-warming emissions from oil and gas operations that will be detected from space by a new satellite."

"Exxon’s Baytown complex in the Houston-area has the third largest oil refinery in the U.S. and is requesting permit renewal for its olefins plant despite repeated violations to the Clean Air Act."

"The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease."

"New York City is considering limiting the types of laundry and dishwashing detergents available in the five boroughs. City Council Member James Gennaro, a Democrat, introduced a bill on Thursday that would make it illegal to sell or distribute detergent pods or laundry sheets that contain polyvinyl alcohol, also known as PVA or PVOH."

"President Biden will travel to East Palestine on Feb. 16, a little more than a year a since the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals near the town."

"On the 30th anniversary of the first presidential executive order on environmental justice, a report from the fencelines in the booming Southeast Texas petrochemical corridor."

"A glaring loophole already had allowed at least a half-billion tons of the waste to go unregulated. Now the agency says many of the facilities that are subject to the rules do not comply."