Why is Antarctic glacier melting? BBC doesn’t mention the active volcanoes underneath. Rob Bradley: ‘It’s high time to exit the climate road to serfdom.’ Plastic producers having trouble meeting ‘sustainability’ standards because they can’t get enough recycled plastic.
Tuesday’s Links
Golden rice, here at last. But what was lost during 20 years of prejudice and regulatory delays? H-T Matt Ridley. Republicans are shifting toward embracing climate change as an issue. Has the EPA spent years misleading the public by exaggerating the dangers of particulates?
Monday’s Links
‘Fight fires with facts—not fake science.’ Did British broadcaster David Attenborough scare Greta Thunberg with inaccurate stories of starving polar bears? NOAA revises American climate history (video).
Are Conservatives Conservationists? Yes.
From Trammel Crow in the Dallas Morning News. In the 50 years since the first Earth Day, we’ve made incredible strides in protecting our environment, even as the economy has continued to grow. Rivers no longer catch on fire, our air is cleaner and more of our natural spaces are protected. During this same time,…
Friday’s Links
Is too much e-commerce overrunning our cities? Yes, says the World Economic Forum. The term ‘global warming’ may be coming back, because it’s scarier than ‘climate change.’ Puddles, ditches, and watering ponds no longer regulated as federal waters.
Curbside Recycling: A Costly Mistake
Recycling companies are facing hard times. Partly that’s because in 2017 China started closing its doors to waste. It doesn’t accept mixed paper or most plastic or electronic waste.
Although some recycling (such as electronic waste) has been relocated to South Asia, the dwindling market for recycled material has sent prices downward, making it difficult for the entire industry.
But the biggest problems face companies—and communities—that pick up and sort household. Approximately 60 curbside programs were canceled in 2017, “with even more drop-off site closures and material limitations,” says Waste Dive, a newsletter about the waste industry. (The newsletter does note some programs that had been dropped have come back.)
Material that is supposed to be recycled is ending up in landfills, an Atlantic article said earlier this year. Companies are debating how to cope with the shrinking market. A debate over the “single-stream” versus dual-stream (requiring homeowners to separate recyclables) continues.