"Companies Are Claiming To Be ‘Plastic Neutral.’ Is It Greenwashing?"
"Plastic credits can help fund waste cleanup, but they can also justify making more plastic."
"Plastic credits can help fund waste cleanup, but they can also justify making more plastic."
Sometimes on the environment beat, what seems like an old story is perpetually new again. That’s the case with waste incineration, finds the latest TipSheet. Rather than being reduced, incinerators are just being transformed, with the ongoing burning of plastics especially troubling for the environment and public health. Get the backstory on where the regulatory regime may have holes, plus key reporting angles and story ideas.
"An internal watchdog is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step up its actions to address emissions of cancer-causing benzene, saying that oil refineries have been releasing unsafe levels of the substance."
"In March 2022, 175 countries agreed to write a global treaty to address the plastic pollution crisis. Now, a year and a half later, they finally have a rough draft."
"Recent industrial disaster at Louisiana’s Marathon refinery shows how difficult it is to get information during dangerous events."
"As industrial plants have overtaken historic Black communities and burdened neighborhoods with toxic air pollution, environmental advocates and residents of Louisiana’s chemical corridor have spent decades calling for change."
"3M on Tuesday secured preliminary approval for a $10.3 billion deal resolving claims by U.S. public water providers that the company polluted drinking water with toxic chemicals, less than a day after a group of 22 U.S. states and territories dropped their objections to the deal."
"High levels of manganese in drinking water could harm infants and children, research shows. But industries that use or produce the metal are downplaying the risks in a battle with the EPA."
A decade’s worth of government pesticide data — only available before through FOIA — has been made newly available. And, explains the latest Reporter’s Toolbox, it can lead to revealing environmental, public health and environmental justice stories. More on how the data came to be compiled and advice on using it smartly, along with some caveats.
What brought together two teams of student reporters, half a dozen states and 1,000 miles apart? For one, the high environmental cost of chemical fertilizer. For another, a pair of dedicated journalism teachers. Cynthia Barnett and Sara Shipley Hiles share how they took the project from daydream to reality, brought students into the field and got pickup from numerous news outlets, in the latest EJ Academy.