recycling

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    The Recycling Industry in America Is Broken

    The Recycling Industry in America Is Broken

    Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. According to The National Museum of American History, this popular slogan, with its iconic three arrows forming a triangle, embodied a national call to action to save the environment in the 1970s. In that same decade, the first Earth Day happened, the EPA was formed and Congress passed the Resource Conservation and […]

    This Start-Up Is Recycling Abandoned Wooden Homes in Baltimore

    This Start-Up Is Recycling Abandoned Wooden Homes in Baltimore

    By Natalie Marchant Wood accounts for 10% of yearly waste material in the US. The Baltimore Wood Project salvages wood from buildings to repurpose and resell locally to create a circular economy. The initiative also has social benefits, by creating job opportunities in a post-industrial city that has an 8.5% unemployment rate. An initiative in […]

    Virginia Governor Takes Action on Single-Use Plastics

    Virginia Governor Takes Action on Single-Use Plastics

    The state of Virginia is taking a stand against single-use plastics. Gov. Ralph Northam signed an executive order Tuesday designed to phase out the use of non-reusable plastics at state institutions, including colleges and universities. The order comes the same week that Northam signed a law banning polystyrene food containers in the state, as the […]

    John Oliver Takes on the Plastics Industry

    John Oliver Takes on the Plastics Industry

    In his latest deep dive for Last Week Tonight, comedian John Oliver took on plastic pollution and, specifically, the myth that if we all just recycled enough, the problem would go away. Instead, Oliver argued, this is a narrative that has been intentionally pushed by the plastics industry for decades. He cited the ionic 1970 […]

    U.S. Continues to Ship Illegal Plastic Waste to Developing Countries

    U.S. Continues to Ship Illegal Plastic Waste to Developing Countries

    Editor’s note: This article has been updated with correspondence from the Basel Action Network and the Center for International Environmental Law The majority of the world is working together to reverse the massive plastic pollution problem. But, the world’s leading producer of plastic waste, the U.S., isn’t on board and isn’t following the rules. In […]

    One Man’s Mission to Turn Trash Into Art and Music

    One Man’s Mission to Turn Trash Into Art and Music

    In a CNN feature, Kan Chan Kin asks: “What happens to your trash when you put it in your bin? It doesn’t magically disappear, you know?” The news report calls Kan an “artivist” – part musician, part artist and full-time environmental champion. Kan’s mission is to spread awareness about our collective trash problem and to […]