News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #34
The truth about recycling (it's a lie), new limits for cleaner air, the Colorado River gets hip to climate modeling, and much more!
Trying something new this week — more stories, (slightly) shorter explanations (old habits, etc., etc.). Free subscribers get the first story but you’ll have to pay for the many many others ;) Paid subscribers, let me know what you think!
RECYCLING: IT WAS A SCAM THE WHOLE TIME: And the plastics industry knew all along. (The Guardian)
Many of us may know/think/feel that plastic recycling isn’t doing much, or at least not exactly what’s promised — endlessly reused plastic, that we have previously both reduced and reused. And yet, a new report from the Center for Climate Integrity still manages to shock and surprise with an investigation into the cover-up of this fact by the plastics industry. It turns out that top executives at plastics companies and leaders of industry organizations knew that recycling wasn’t actually possible or didn’t make economic sense, and yet they told the public it was to get us all to buy and use more single-use plastic.
As an Exxon employee said at the American Plastics Council, “We are committed to the activities [of plastics recycling], but not committed to the results.”
EPA MAKING IT EASIER TO BREATHE EASIER: The agency set a new limit on dangerous pollution for the first time in a while. (NPR)
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