Kirstie Pecci, director of the Zero Waste Project at the Conservation Law Foundation, says the problem with single-stream recycling is that it’s very confusing for the consumers and rules can vary from town to town.
This session, the Rhode Island General Assembly missed opportunities to make progress on a wide range of environmental issues. CLF and other environmental organizations pushed for action on the climate crisis, toxic chemicals, and plastics pollution, but no substantial new laws were enacted. It was not a total loss, however, as we were successful in preventing passage of some harmful measures.
Maine’s newly elected governor and legislature delivered on critical new laws that will cut climate-damaging emissions, protect Maine’s families and children from toxic chemicals, clean up our rivers, and save energy – all while creating jobs, growing new industries, and strengthening the economy.
“The best way to handle this is not to build landfill gas-to-energy systems or to capture the methane, because you’re never going to capture all of it,” Pecci said. “The best way to handle this is to keep our food scraps, our yard waste, our textiles, our paper and cardboard out of the landfill entirely.”
Jen Duggan, director of the Vermont Conservation Law Foundation, says cities and counties that have passed bag bans often defined prohibited bags by their thickness or applied measurements requiring that it carry a certain weight a certain distance. “What happened was the bag makers flooded the markets with thicker bags,” she says.
“Plastic bags are used for mere minutes before they poison our communities and our bodies for years,” said Kirstie Pecci, Director of the Zero Waste Project at CLF. “We cannot recycle our way out of this. Banning single-use plastics is the only way to protect our health and environment from this dangerous blight on our communities.”
Wheelabrator cannot be allowed to ignore those whose lives are most directly affected by its proposal to expand its massive ash landfill in Saugus, Massachusetts.
“Simply put, Vermont is leading the nation in dealing with the toxic blight of single-use plastics,” Jen Duggan, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) Vermont, told Waste Dive
Stop plastic from harming our air, water, and health.
Connecticut lawmakers are debating a bill right now that would help keep millions of bottles and cans out of Connecticut’s parks, beaches, and streets every year – at no cost to taxpayers. But the bill won’t pass if the plastics industry and big beverage brands get their way.
