Several studies have emerged challenging the effectiveness of plastic bag bans. These studies and their coverage in the media are causing some confusion among consumers and legislators. We want to set the record straight, as studies critiquing plastic bag bans don’t account for the broader scope of plastics.
Jun 16
2020
2020
Jun 16
2020
2020
Burning Medical Waste is a Toxic Business
A proposed medical waste facility in West Warwick would collect and burn waste from healthcare facilities across New England. But we have a responsibility to protect the health and safety of our communities and environment. Now is not the time for Rhode Island to become the region’s dumping ground for toxic medical waste.
Jun 15
2020
2020
Burning Trash to Create Energy is Not the Solution
The waste industry claims that their so-called “waste-to-energy” technologies can help combat the climate crisis by reducing climate-damaging emissions. But these claims are misleading and inaccurate. Burning trash to create energy will not solve the climate crisis or our growing waste problem.
Jun 15
2020
2020
Giving Native River Herring a Second Chance
Thousands of dams, large and small, built over the last 250 years have cut fish off from freshwater spawning grounds, thwarting reproductive cycles that had been ongoing for eons. The impacts of these dams, on top of pollution, overfishing, and climate change, have led to a drastic decline in river herring populations – threatening their survival.
Jun 10
2020
2020
Why COVID-19 Is Hitting Some Communities Harder
COVID-19’s unequal impact on our communities has laid bare stark realities about health, wealth, and housing. As our Healthy Neighborhoods Study has shown – and as the map of COVID-19 infections bears out – low-income and people of color face community-level stressors resulting from public health inequities and environmental injustices. These stressors result directly from decades of discriminatory housing policy.
Jun 10
2020
2020
Should You Ditch Your Reusable Bags? No.
The plastic industry has been trying to take advantage of the pandemic to maximize profits. But fueling fear during a public health crisis is outrageous and must be called out. To truly protect public health and the environment long-term, we need full-scale reuse systems.
Jun 9
2020
2020
Connecticut’s Bottle Bill is Back After Services Were Reduced
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, staffing concerns caused many New England states with bottle return programs to temporarily stop enforcing collection requirements at grocery stores, supermarkets, and liquor shops. Connecticut was among the states pressing pause on bottle bill enforcement. But as of May 20, the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has reinstated bottle collection requirements at these retail sites.
Jun 5
2020
2020
Trump Guts Protections for Atlantic Marine Monument – That’s Illegal
As the nation grapples with the pandemics of racism and COVID-19, President Trump decimated protections for the Atlantic’s only marine national monument, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts. That’s illegal — and CLF and our partners will fight this rollback.
Jun 2
2020
2020
Black Lives Matter
All of us at CLF are reeling from and sharing in the national outrage over the murders and persecution of black people perpetrated and condoned by the police and other state actors. Racial justice is at the heart of climate justice, and we fight for both.
May 28
2020
2020
The Real Fishwives of Cashes Ledge
A key step to saving Atlantic cod is protecting the mother fish that lay exponentially more eggs than their smaller, younger counterparts. Protecting area where these BOFFFFs, or Big Old Fat Fertile Female Fish, live and spawn is crucial to a healthy cod population.