Waste

"Plastic food packaging contains chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system — and that can leach into food, a new study has found."

"With a presidential election looming, a wave of state-level legislation circulating, an international plastics treaty taking form and fights brewing over proposed facilities, 2024 is set to shape the regulatory future of chemical recycling in the U.S."

"When the Hawthorne Park Landfill opened in 1977, it transformed everyday life for residents of Carverdale, a historically Black neighborhood in northwest Houston. Myra Jefferson has seen pests and roaches from the dump multiply over the decades and remembers yellow dust from the rot sticking to everything."

"Waste produced by the public will surge by 2050, causing hundreds of billions of dollars of damage through biodiversity loss, climate change and deadly pollution, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report on Wednesday."

"EPA announced an additional $1 billion will go toward cleaning up the nation’s most contaminated areas under its Superfund program." "The funding will help scrub 25 waste sites and speed cleanups at another 85 existing tracts."

"Federal environment officials have ordered a Los Angeles County landfill to take urgent action to protect public health, citing noxious odors and hazardous waste issues in the surrounding community."

"Two Texas farm families have seen their health decline, their pets and livestock sickened and killed, their water poisoned and and their property values wiped out due to high levels of chemical contamination linked to a company marketing treated sewage sludge as a fertilizer and soil conditioner, according to a lawsuit filed by the families."

"Plastic producers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution. That has not stopped them from promoting it, according to a new report."