Consumer

"Plastic credits can help fund waste cleanup, but they can also justify making more plastic."

"Policymakers hoped deregulated energy markets would lower utility bills through open competition. Energy advocates found the opposite: retail energy companies are fleecing low-income communities of color in cities like Baltimore."

"A little over a year ago, Peter Gardner, a Louisiana developer, completed rehabbing an apartment building with 144 units and got a surprise so ugly it made him decide to move his business out of town."

"I was sitting in solitude earlier this summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, when I realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. Thanks to the app I’d just downloaded on my phone — the popular and free Merlin Bird ID — I learned just from listening that I was surrounded by more than a dozen species of birds."

"An internal watchdog is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step up its actions to address emissions of cancer-causing benzene, saying that oil refineries have been releasing unsafe levels of the substance."

"The water in these four unincorporated communities near Lubbock has been undrinkable for years, residents say. They hope to win $3 million in state grants to improve their systems."

"Traders in the world's largest secondhand clothes market want reparations for chronic pollution caused by fast fashion".

"3M on Tuesday secured preliminary approval for a $10.3 billion deal resolving claims by U.S. public water providers that the company polluted drinking water with toxic chemicals, less than a day after a group of 22 U.S. states and territories dropped their objections to the deal."

"High levels of manganese in drinking water could harm infants and children, research shows. But industries that use or produce the metal are downplaying the risks in a battle with the EPA."

"In the early 2000s, researchers tested breast milk samples from U.S. mothers and found high levels of toxic compounds used as a common flame retardant in household items."