This Plastic Free July, we need to be teaching children to demand less plastic from the world’s worst producers instead of expecting change from individual recycling efforts.
Plastic waste from land based sources pollute the beaches and other water bodies.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via GettyImages
Here’s some good environmental news – local governments and local actions have slashed the plastic on our beaches. Incentives, awareness and access are the key.
A garbage dump fire is seen smouldering across the bay from the city of Iqaluit on July 9, 2014.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Priority should be given to improving municipal solid waste management in First Nation communities because they currently lack financial resources, infrastructure and solid waste diversion programs.
Representatives of 175 countries voted to start developing a global treaty to reduce plastic waste. Treaties addressing mercury, long-range air pollution and ozone depletion offer some lessons.
Tech companies do not make it easy or affordable to get products repaired.
iJasper/Shutterstock
When governments want people to do less of something, one way to make that happen is to charge them for doing it. That’s the idea behind pay-as-you-throw waste policies.
Plastic debris on a beach on Lanai, a sparsely populated Hawaiian island.
Matthew Koller
An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean each year – equivalent to dumping in a garbage truckload of it every minute. A new report calls on the US to help stem the deluge.
The environmental footprint of milk containers varies substantially.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
In Canada, milk is available in jugs, cartons, bags and glass bottles. A new analysis reveals which type of container has the smallest environmental footprint — from container production to disposal.