Our recycling system is in a crisis. Up until last year, recyclables collected for the U.S. were shipped to China for processing. But then, China stopped accepting our recycling, setting off a chain reaction of problems. In New England and across the country, the cost of recycling for towns and cities is skyrocketing, forcing local… Continue reading Our Recycling System is Broken
With action to stem plastic pollution stalled at the state level, communities across the Ocean State continue to pick up the slack and take on this important work.
We live surrounded by trash, especially single-use plastic. It’s in our homes, schools, restaurants, offices, communities, and the environment. There’s so much waste that it can be easy to miss its full scale in our lives. Manufacturers and brand owners have created this throw-away culture by mass-producing disposable goods. But when it comes time to… Continue reading Can You Slash Your Trash for One Week?
We use dangerous plastics for just minutes – plastics that poison us, plastics that trash our waters and wildlife, and plastics that throw fuel on the climate crisis fire. It’s time to tell the plastics industry enough is enough and kick our plastic habit for good. The only way to solve this problem is to eliminate the use of single-use plastic products and hold corporations accountable for the public health and environmental impacts of their toxic plastic trash.
As they campaign in New Hampshire, presidential candidates must address the critical environmental threats facing our communities.
“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.”
Plastics are everywhere, and they aren’t all recyclable. Until there’s a new system that creates a structure for using less plastic from the beginning, here’s a handy guide to what can and can’t go in the bin.
American recycling is in a crisis. But this crisis is a chance to create a better system for tomorrow. Today’s products and their packaging are often made from plastic and designed for disposal. By holding the producers of those products accountable for their polluting products, we can create a system that’s better for our communities and better for our planet.
CLF is focused on cutting carbon and plastic pollution, protecting our children from lead poisoning, and securing funding to clean up Lake Champlain.
”Plastics create unsightly litter on land and are deadly in our oceans,” said Amy Moses, Vice President and Director of CLF Rhode Island. “Single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels and pollute our environment at every stage of their manufacture, use and disposal. We can’t recycle our way out of this problem. Rhode Island needs to ban these materials, and this task force is an important step in the right direction.”
