In My Opinion: Comparing the nation’s first packaging EPR laws
Today's guest blog is authored by Karen Hagerman of GreenBlue. Its original posting can be found on the Resource Recycling website.
On Aug. 6, Oregon became the second state to sign into law an extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation for packaging. The Pacific Northwest state joins Maine, bookending the country with legislation that requires producers to take more responsibility for the end-of-life management of the packaging they produce. Though both laws call for the implementation of a producer responsibility program, the two states have differing visions of what that implementation will look like.
Recognizing the differences between the two laws is not straightforward. To help with this, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) recently launched an interactive…
What we can learn from space trash
Today's guest blog is authored by Lauren Phipps of GreenBiz. The original posting can be found here.
About once every year, the International Space Station has to alter its course, ever so slightly, to avoid a potentially mission-critical collision with a piece of space trash. These unwanted flying objects — more formally known as orbital debris — are human-made items that no longer serve any useful purpose, both intentionally and unintentionally left to orbit in perpetuity.
Derelict spacecrafts and satellites, payload carriers, motor effluents, bolts and fragments of paint chips: Orbital debris runs the gamut from more substantial litter — about 23,000 pieces larger than 10 cm — to smaller debris — about 500,000 items between 1 and 10 cm in diameter — to the infinitesimally tiny — over 100 million particles larger than 1 mm. So next time you look up at the night sky and consider your place in the universe, consider that 8,000 metric tons of junk are swirling around above you.
It’s a tale as old as time. As the…
What goes up, must come down: balloon litter edition
Today's guest blog is from Lauren Obermeyer, NYSDEC Summer Intern, Division of Materials Management
You may remember a time when you accidentally let a balloon go outside. You were probably sad to see it go, but there’s no dark abyss that it goes into. What goes up, must come down. Balloon releasing is gaining popularity when celebrating or remembering loved ones. What participants don’t realize is that once these balloons are released and you can’t see them anymore, they inevitably deflate and return to Earth.
An out of sight, out of mind attitude is harmful when it comes to how the environment, as well as others, are affected. Wildlife can ingest these balloons, get tangled in the ribbons, and the balloons can even hit power lines becoming a fire hazard. The plastic balloons also slowly degrade, but never biodegrade once they hit the ground. The macroplastics break down into microplastics that find their way into wildlife, vegetation, and even humans! This is not only a continental wildlife issue, but an aquatic wildlife issue, environmental and human health issue.
How wildlife is affected
Balloons…