Feb 10, 2020
Over the years, Pecci said many communities in the state have gone to a single-stream recycling system. And those streams have increasingly captured items that either are not recyclable or for which there is no recycling market, such as coffee-cup lids. “What happened is we degraded the quality of the material,” Pecci said. “The cleaner and more sorted something is, the more value it is going to have.”
Feb 07, 2020
“This rule green-lights the dumping of pesticides and toxic chemicals into our waters,” says Heather Govern, director of the Conservation Law Foundation’s clean air and water program. “Drinking water in New England is threatened by rule changes like this, because you just won’t have those same protections for smaller streams.”
Feb 04, 2020
Since installing solar panels on their barn, Sean Mahoney and his wife have noticed a huge difference in their energy bills. They’ve also been able to reduce their carbon footprint.
Jan 31, 2020
Erica Kyzmir-McKeon is a Staff Attorney in CLF’s Clean Air & Water and Environmental Justice Programs. Before assuming the role of Staff Attorney, Erica was a Senior Fellow with CLF’s Farm & Food Program, where she coordinated the Rhode Island Legal Food Hub. Prior to joining CLF, Erica worked as a public interest attorney with… Continue reading Erica Kyzmir-McKeon
Jan 31, 2020
Every winter the gas industry tries to scare us, claiming there isn’t enough gas during cold snaps to heat and power our homes. Their solution? More fracked gas and new, expensive gas pipelines. But we don’t have to buy into their propaganda. We have all the power we need without expensive new pipelines.
Jan 29, 2020
“We have many options for heating our homes,” says Greg Cunningham, Director of CLF’s Clean Energy and Climate Change program. “Alternatives like heat pumps avoid the use of oil and natural gas furnaces, which pollute our environment and damage our climate.”
Jan 28, 2020
Despite many good intentions, curbside recycling has turned out to be a disaster. But that doesn’t mean recycling is dead. We have solutions. One of the best systems for recycling our plastic, glass, and aluminum containers is the bottle return program, also known as the “bottle bill” or deposit-return.
Jan 28, 2020
Although some New England states pioneered the bottle return system, they have since fallen behind. But New England can improve its recycling by updating or adopting bottle return systems in each state. This would help reduce litter in our neighborhoods, parks, and waterways; it would keep recyclable material out of landfills and incinerators; and it would lift some recycling costs off of communities.
Jan 27, 2020
Our electricity grid was designed over 100 years ago. But times have changed. Today, clean, renewable energy can be harnessed right where we live, so electricity doesn’t have to come from polluting power plants miles away. But we have to update our electricity grid to take advantage of it.
Jan 24, 2020
CLF’ers Elena Mihaly and Tom Irwin show that you don’t have to live in a major city, or even on a paved road, to benefit from driving an electric car.