plastic pollution – Enviro Updates

No, compostable bags don’t go in the green bin

January 15, 2026

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Rob Carey was surprised after garbage pickup day to see the pink notice affixed to his green bin.

The note left for the Sebastopol resident was a soft reprimand from the city’s curbside hauler, Sonoma County Resource Recovery.

Carey, who regards himself a considerate customer, had been called out for for using green compostable bags to discard his fruit and vegetable scraps.

“They said, ‘We don’t want that,’” he said, confounded. “And here I thought these bags were good.”

Carey considers himself a ‘recycler,’ so he was surprised to learn he’d been going about his green waste disposal in the wrong way.

He is likely not alone.

While single-use bags labeled as compostable are an alternative for plastic bags, they are not be disposed of in the green bins used to collect compostable waste, including food scraps and yard debris.

Sustainable Living'biodegradeable' plastic, compost, plastic pollution, plastic waste

California sues ExxonMobil and says it lied about plastics recycling

September 23, 2024

Janie Har, APNEWS

California sued ExxonMobil Monday, alleging the oil giant deceived the public for half a century by promising that the plastics it produced would be recycled.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said that less than 5% of plastic is recycled into another plastic product in the U.S. even though the items are labeled as “recyclable.” As a result, landfills and oceans are filled with plastic waste, creating a global pollution crisis, while consumers diligently place plastic water bottles and other containers into recycling bins, the lawsuit alleges.

“‘Buy as much as you want, no problem, it’ll be recycled,’ they say. Lies, and they aim to make us feel less guilty about our waste if we recycle it,” said Bonta, a Democrat, at a virtual news conference, where he was joined by representatives of environmental groups that filed a separate but similar lawsuit Monday, also in San Francisco County Superior Court.

“The end goal is to drive people to buy, buy, buy and to drive ExxonMobil’s profits up, up, up,” he said.

ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest producers of plastics, blamed California for its flawed recycling system.

Sustainable LivingCalifornia, Exxon, microplastics, plastic pollution, plastic waste, recycling

California governor signs law banning all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

September 22, 2024

APNEWS

“Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) per year in 2004 to 11 pounds (5 kilograms) per year in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

America’s ‘recycled’ plastic waste is clogging landfills, survey finds

February 18, 2020

Erin McCormick, THE GUARDIAN

Many facilities lack the ability to process ‘mixed plastics’, a category of waste that has virtually no market as new products.

Many plastic items that Americans put in their recycling bins aren’t being recycled at all, according to a major new survey of hundreds of recycling facilities across the US.

The research, conducted by Greenpeace and released on Tuesday, found that out of 367 recycling recovery facilities surveyed none could process coffee pods, fewer than 15% accepted plastic clamshells – such as those used to package fruit, salad or baked goods – and only a tiny percentage took plates, cups, bags and trays.

The findings confirm the results of a Guardian investigation last year, which revealed that numerous types of plastics are being sent straight to landfill in the wake of China’s crackdown on US recycling exports. Greenpeace’s findings also suggest that numerous products labeled as recyclable in fact have virtually no market as new products.
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While the report found there is still a strong recycling market for bottles and jugs labeled #1 or #2, such as plastic water bottles and milk containers, the pipeline has bottomed out for many plastics labelled #3-7, which fall into a category dubbed “mixed plastics”. While often marketed by brands as recyclable, these plastics are hard for recyclers to repurpose and are often landfilled, causing confusion for consumers.

“This report shows that one of the best things to do to save recycling is to stop claiming that everything is recyclable,” said John Hocevar, director of Greenpeace’s Oceans Campaign. “We have to talk to companies about not producing so much throw-away plastic that ends up in the ocean or in incinerators.”

In a news release accompanying the report, Greenpeace threatened to file federal complaints against manufacturers who mislead the public about the recyclability of their packaging.

Sustainable Livinglandfill, plastic pollution, plastics, recycling, solid waste

Bay plastic infests Petaluma River

December 2, 2019

Janet Perry, PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER

There are plastic particulates in San Francisco Bay, trillions of them. Some come from car tires — those tend to sink to the bottom — and there are tiny fragments floating, many coming from fancy polar fleece jackets and other clothing after the first few washings.

There’s other stuff in there too, like single use plastic container particles, pieces of plastic stir sticks and plastic bags, and it has caught the attention of scientists.

The San Francisco Estuary Institute and the 5 Gyres Institute carried out a study of plastic in the bay.

The Petaluma River flows into the bay and was mentioned in the study, although researchers did not collect data from the river itself. Carolynn Boxx, 5 Gyres science programs director, explained that samples were collected where the Petaluma River flows into the bay but because of the limited number of samples collected, individual sections of the bay were not analyzed separately.

“The project identified recommendations to work towards solutions, with supporting policy that eliminates single use plastic items being one of the top recommendations,” Boxx said. “We encourage Bay Area cities to look to Berkeley’s comprehensive ordinance on disposable plastic food ware as a model ordinance. Maybe Petaluma will be next?”

The Petaluma City Council recently passed a ban on Styrofoam and has considered expanding it to plastic food ware.

Clothing is a big plastic culprit too. The first washing of fleece and other plastics-based fibers can have a big impact, as the particulates tend to be dispersed more during those first washings. Lots of clothing today contain man-made plastics fibers.

Some companies, like Patagonia, are trying to find solutions and encourage the purchase of well-made items that will last longer.

Sustainable Living, Watermicroplastics, Petaluma River, plastic pollution, plastics ban, San Francisco Bay, single-use plastics

Nearly all countries agree to stem flow of plastic waste into poor nations

May 11, 2019

Emily Holden, THE GUARDIAN

Almost all the world’s countries have agreed on a deal aimed at restricting shipments of hard-to-recycle plastic waste to poorer countries, the United Nations announced on Friday.

Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.

Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.
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“We were finding that there was waste from the US that was just piled up in villages throughout these countries that had once been primarily agricultural communities,” said Claire Arkin, a spokeswoman for Gaia.

The legally binding framework emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of UN-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals that threaten the planet’s seas and creatures. The pact comes in an amendment to the Basel convention. The US is not a party to that convention so it did not have a vote, but attendees at the meeting said the country argued against the change, saying officials didn’t understand the repercussions it would have on the plastic waste trade.

Sustainable Livingplastic pollution, plastics, solid waste

Fight against plastic pollution targets a hidden source: Our clothes

May 5, 2019

Denise Chow, NBC NEWS

The plastic bottles, straws and grocery bags that wash ashore on beaches are some of the most visible signs that society’s intoxication with plastic is taking a toll on the environment. But scientists say there is another source of plastic pollution that is just as pervasive and even more difficult to clean up — and it’s hiding in our clothes.

Most clothing contains synthetic fabrics such as polyester or nylon that are essentially constructed from thin plastic fibers. These fabrics have become fixtures in closets around the world because they are durable and cheap to make. Stretchy, sweat-wicking workout clothes, water-resistant rainwear and fleece sweaters are all made of synthetics — not to mention many T-shirts, dresses and jeans that contain a cotton-synthetic blend.

These tiny bits of plastic pose a daunting environmental challenge. As so-called microfibers shed off clothing, they eventually end up in the ocean, where they can be ingested by fish and other seafood that humans eat.

“This is the microplastic pollution that we don’t talk about as much because it’s unseen, but these microfibers are everywhere,” said Sarah-Jeanne Royer, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “We’ve sampled them at the North Pole, in Antarctica, at the top of mountains and even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench — everywhere in the world.”

Most microfiber pollution occurs when people wash their clothes. A 2016 study by researchers at the University of Plymouth in the U.K. estimated that up to 700,000 microfibers could be released in a single load of laundry, roughly equivalent to the surface area of a pack of gum.

Sustainable Living, Watermicroplastics, plastic pollution, plastics, solid waste, water pollution