"Thirteen years after a kayaker reported stepping into a stinging patch of muck in the Congaree River, contractors have cleaned up the toxic mess that covered a stretch of the river bottom below the Gervais Street bridge in Columbia, South Carolina."
In our annual look-ahead on the environment and energy beat in 2024, we see a bumpy ride on global climate change talks coupled with more climate-driven disasters, even amid the evolving energy transition. And we see possible risks to ocean life from deep sea mining and continuing risks to human life from pollution of air, water and land. Insights in our overview and our full “2024 Journalists’ Guide to Environment & Energy” special report.
"As the world's nations enter another round of talks this week on creating a first-ever treaty to contain plastic pollution, officials are bracing for tough negotiations over whether to limit the amount of plastic being produced or just to focus on the management of waste."
"In what was once a proud and neighborly community where residents sat on their porches and looked after kids playing in the streets, the noxious smell and degraded air quality attributable to the Covanta waste incinerator — the largest in the country, burning as much as 3,500 tons of trash a day — have driven residents indoors or out of town."
"It’s a billion-dollar decision. Probably many billions. And people all around Alabama are waiting anxiously for the feds to decide what happens next. Can Alabama leave its 100 million tons of coal ash where the utilities dumped it, in unlined ditches along the rivers across the state?"
"Revelations by a watchdog group reinforce doubts about chemical recycling, a technology promoted by the city in a collaboration with ExxonMobil and other companies."
"Chemical recycling — an umbrella term used to describe processes that break plastic waste down into molecular building blocks with high heat or chemicals and convert them into new products — will not help reduce plastic pollution, but rather exacerbate environmental problems, according to a new report by nonprofit environmental advocacy groups Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)."
"Today, spent filters—cigarette butts stuffed with microplastics—are some of the most abundant litter on the beach, which is just one stop on their toxic marine journey that often begins in storm drains."
"Landfills in Oregon and Washington repeatedly exceeded federal standards for methane emissions last year, according to documents obtained by an environmental group."
"Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and seven House Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review potential environmental damages caused by idled coal mines."
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