air pollution

California Sues Walmart for Dumping Hazardous Waste in Landfills

California Sues Walmart for Dumping Hazardous Waste in Landfills

Corporate giant Walmart is being sued by the state of California for allegedly dumping 159,600 pounds of hazardous waste a year in the state’s landfills. The products, which include pesticides, toxic cleaning supplies, batteries, aerosol cans, latex paints and LED lightbulbs, are not materials the landfills are equipped to handle. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, […]

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    Welsh Government Offers Every Household a Free Tree to Plant

    Welsh Government Offers Every Household a Free Tree to Plant

    In an effort to help the country reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the Welsh government is offering every household in Wales a free tree to plant or have planted in the country’s woodlands on their behalf. About 1.3 million native species of trees will be made available at a cost of about […]

    U.S. Is World’s Biggest Producer of Plastic Waste, Report Finds

    U.S. Is World’s Biggest Producer of Plastic Waste, Report Finds

    The United States is the world’s leader in the generation of plastic waste, nearly all from fossil fuels, and must develop a plan to curb its destructive impacts on the health of oceans and marine wildlife, concludes a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The first recommendation of the committee […]

    How an Arctic City Became One of the World’s Most Polluted Places

    How an Arctic City Became One of the World’s Most Polluted Places

    In Norilsk, the northernmost city in the world, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, but the permafrost and structural problems have not been caused by climate change alone. A smelting company has polluted rivers and destroyed boreal forest. Norilsk, population 176,000, is known by environmentalists and the Russian […]

    Why Do Walmart, Amazon, Target and IKEA Have Such High Shipping Emissions?

    Why Do Walmart, Amazon, Target and IKEA Have Such High Shipping Emissions?

    As a congestion crisis continues to stall polluting container ships in ports around the world, there is a growing awareness of the role that international shipping plays in both the climate crisis and the public-health impacts of air pollution. Released on Cyber Monday, a new report from Ship It Zero coalition members Stand.earth and Pacific […]

    Top Cancerous Air Pollution Sites in U.S. Revealed

    Top Cancerous Air Pollution Sites in U.S. Revealed

    An extensive analysis by ProPublica reveals a detailed map of more than 1,000 American communities that are hotspots for carcinogenic air pollution. The worst three are in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” five of the top 20 are in Texas, and predominantly Black areas experience double the cancer risk of white areas. “Go read this investigation on […]

    Plastics Could Release More Emissions Than Coal by 2030, Study Finds

    Plastics Could Release More Emissions Than Coal by 2030, Study Finds

    Plastic has infiltrated every aspect of our lives and planet, with microplastics in our tea bags and even plastic pollution found in some of the most remote parts of the world. It’s no secret that our reliance on these fossil fuel-based products and packages is damaging Earth, but a new report from Beyond Plastics shows […]

    Smoke From Wildfires in the West Harms More People in the East, Study Finds

    Smoke From Wildfires in the West Harms More People in the East, Study Finds

    Smoke from wildfires burning across the American West causes greater health damage east of the Rockies than to their west, a new study shows. About three-quarters of deaths and asthma visits to emergency departments related to smoke over the past decade have occurred in the East because of higher population densities. “Smoke is not just […]