Waste

"Native American leaders from New Mexico are opposing plans that call for storing in the desert Southwest tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants around the U.S."

"For decades, Coca-Cola has burnished its public image as an environmentally caring company with donations to recycling nonprofits. Meanwhile, as one of the world’s most polluting brands, Coke has quietly fought efforts to hold the company accountable for plastic waste."

"After months of global outcry over the United States’ role in the plastic pollution crisis, companies that collect and dispose of waste are trying to clamp down on the amount of American refuse that gets dumped in poorer countries."

"COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — The movement started last spring with a dinner table conversation at then third-grader Aggy Deagle’s home."

"Plastic production really began in earnest in the 1950s. It’s hard to remember, but we once got along without it. Of course, plastic offered great convenience, and its production skyrocketed."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority, long respected for providing good jobs and cheap electricity, is facing a growing backlash over its handling of a massive coal ash spill a decade ago, with potentially serious consequences for an industry often opposed to environmental regulation."

"“It’s really a complete myth when people say that we’re recycling our plastics,” says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, which campaigns against the illegal waste trade."

The 386-acre property looks like a giant Lego set rising from the banks of the Ohio River. It is one of the largest active construction projects in the United States, employing more than 5,000 people. When completed, the facility will be fed by pipelines stretching hundreds of miles across Appalachia. It will have its own rail system with 3,300 freight cars. And it will produce more than a million tons each year of something that many people argue the world needs less of: plastic."

"In the 1980s, the mafia controlled garbage in New York. So when an Alabama businessman named Lowell Harrelson wanted to turn trash into energy, he found a mob boss. Bought 3,186 tons of garbage, put it on a big ship, and set sail to find a landfill to work with. After a 6,000 mile journey, The Garbage Barge, as it came to be known, resulted in an epic mess."