Plastic pollution and global heating are caught in a “vicious circle” of one feeding the other, a new study by researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology has found.
The mutually reinforcing relationship increases global heating, plastic waste, the degradation of materials and the leaching of chemicals into the biosphere, a press release from KTH said.
“Polymer materials, mainly plastics and rubbers, are notably sensitive to temperature and moisture fluctuations. As temperatures rise, polymers undergo thermal expansion, leading to inferior properties,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Rising global temperatures will cause everyday plastics to deteriorate more quickly, resulting in increased demand. Producing additional plastic products will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, driving up temperatures, explained Xinfeng Wei, a polymeric materials researcher at KTH.
“A self-reinforcing cycle is formed, creating a vicious circle between climate change and plastic pollution,” Wei said in the press release.
One effect of global warming is faster deterioration of plastics, which results in higher carbon emissions, said researcher Xinfeng Wei, unpacking plastic pellets here in the polymer materials lab at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. KTH / David Callahan
Plastics were responsible for 3.4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 — roughly 1.8 billion tons — primarily due to their conversion from fossil fuels and their production, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said. That amount is predicted to double by 2060.
The study, “Plastic pollution amplified by a warming climate,” was published in the journal Nature Communications.
The feedback loop described by the researchers links the greenhouse gas emissions with moisture, heat and the weakened structural bonds of polymers like rubber and plastic that are formed from chains of large molecules.
“The higher the increase in temperature, the more the materials’ properties are compromised,” Wei said.
When temperatures reach between 73.4 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit, Wei said common plastics like polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene become more than 20 percent less stiff. The deterioration means polymer products — from clothing and appliances to auto parts — need to be replaced more frequently, resulting in increased manufacturing rates and volumes. The effects range from unreliable food packaging to waterways contaminated by microplastics, Wei said.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other hazardous compounds such as flame retardants, antioxidants, lubricants, plasticizers, UV/heat stabilizers and colorants can also be released. The leaching, evaporation and diffusion of VOCs into soil, air and water is accelerated by heat.
“A warmer atmosphere increases the evaporation of moisture and can also hold more water vapor,” Wei said in the press release. “The combined effects of rising temperature and moisture create very challenging conditions for these polymers.”
In order to address the dual challenges of climate change and plastic pollution, the researchers encouraged a mobilization of efforts in all sectors of the lifecycle of plastics.
Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming gases in the United States, which makes reducing tailpipe pollution as quickly as possible essential to meeting our climate goals. The Biden administration took a huge stride toward that goal Wednesday when it unveiled the tightest limits the nation has ever placed on vehicle emissions.
The rule, which follows three years of deliberation among regulators, automakers, and others, places increasingly stringent standards on the amount of CO2 and other pollutants cars can emit. The goal is to further electrify the country’s fleet through 2032, when President Biden hopes to see every other car sold be electric or a plug-in hybrid.
“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” Biden said in a statement posted on social media. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal by 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”
The guideline, which takes effect with the 2027 model year, drew support from automakers and the leader of one industry trade group appeared with Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as he announced the regulation. Standing alongside gleaming chargers and spotless electric vehicles — underscoring the point of the new rule — Regan called the regulation “the strongest vehicle pollution technology standard ever finalized in United States history.”
Should the regulation survive the inevitable legal challenges — Louisiana’s Republican attorney general told the New York Times she plans to fight it in court — it will avoid more than 7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, according to the EPA. Those gains will inevitably boost public health as well.
“EPA just took a critical step to address climate change and reduce air pollution,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, said in a statement. “Stronger limits on pollution from cars, pickups, and SUVs will improve the air that everyone breathes and help prevent future health harms from climate change.”
How automakers meet the new guideline is up to them, as the rule is agnostic of the technologies they use to do so. Despite fearmongering from some corners of society and a specious warning from a fossil fuel trade group that the rule is an “EPA car ban,” EVs are but one approach. Plug-in hybrids and increasingly efficient internal combustion engines are other options, as the regulation only requires automakers to meet increasingly strict average emission limits across their entire product lines.
Still, the industry has made a major push into electrification and sold a record 1.2 million EVs last year. Sales slowed in recent months, however, and the new regulation will require a tenfold increase in sales within eight years. John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, called that a “stretch goal” but said Wednesday, “The future is electric.”
The EPA’s standard is less aggressive than what was included when it proposed the rules in April, a concession the Biden administration made to automakers and the United Auto Workers. Manufacturers worried the original pace was too fast, and workers worried about job security. Electric vehicles tend to have fewer parts — meaning fewer people are needed on assembly lines — and many factories are located in right-to-work states hostile to organized labor.
“I know I’ve been a thorn in your side this last year,” Bozzella, whose organization represents 42 automakers and industry suppliers, told Regan from the stage during Wednesday’s event. “But it’s only because automakers are committed to electrification, and we want this transformation to EVs — our shared goal, by the way — to succeed over the long haul.”
Tempering the guideline will likely lead to a slower near-term ramp up in vehicle electrification, but the final rule nonetheless positions the sector to see EVs account for 67 percent of sales by 2032, according to a memo from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
While climate advocates by and large applauded the new guideline, many felt the Biden administration should have acted more aggressively.
“This rule falls far short of what is needed to protect public health and our planet,” Chelsea Hodgkins, a senior policy advocate with Public Citizen, said in a statement. The organization issued a report noting the vast resources the industry expended to weaken the rule, and said, “EPA is giving automakers a pass to continue producing polluting vehicles.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists also expressed disappointment, noting that “the science is clear on both the urgent need to cut climate-endangering emissions and the fact that we can make the cuts we need. We don’t have many opportunities to reduce transportation pollution, and it’s disappointing that this rule falls short of what’s possible.”
Still, any slack that may come from the federal effort may be picked up by the states. California plans to ban the sale of new internal combustion vehicles by 2035. Eight states have followed suit, pointing the way toward what is possible.
“The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general, as Reuters reported. “What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern.”
The report confirmed that last year was the planet’s warmest on record, with a global average temperature of 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” Saulo said in the press release.
Nearly a third of the world’s ocean was experiencing a marine heat wave on the average day in 2023. By the latter part of the year, heat wave conditions had affected more than 90 percent of the ocean at some point, impacting ecosystems and food systems.
“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators… Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up,” said António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, in a video message.
Preliminary data has shown that extreme ice melt in Europe and western North America has led to global reference glaciers suffering the largest ice loss since records began in 1950, the press release said.
The maximum Antarctic sea ice extent was one million square kilometers below the last record year — a deficit equivalent to an area the size of Germany and France combined.
“The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis – as witnessed by growing food insecurity and population displacement, and biodiversity loss,” Saulo said in the press release.
According to the report, climate and weather extremes are aggravating factors in acute global food insecurity, which affected 333 million people last year in 78 countries monitored by the World Food Programme.
Displacement continued to be triggered by weather events in 2023, demonstrating how climate extremes can create novel protection risks and undermine resilience in the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The report did offer hope in terms of renewable energy generation to achieve decarbonization goals. Renewables capacity increased to 510 gigawatts last year — up nearly 50 percent from 2022 — the highest rate in the last two decades.
The Copenhagen Climate Ministerial on March 21 and 22 will bring together climate ministers and leaders from across the globe for their first meeting since COP28. One focus will be to enhance nations’ Nationally Determined Contributions before the deadline in February of 2025, as well to reach a financing agreement at COP29 to put climate plans into action.
“Climate Action is currently being hampered by a lack of capacity to deliver and use climate services to inform national mitigation and adaptation plans, especially in developing countries. We need to increase support for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services to be able to provide information services to ensure the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions are based on science,” Saulo said in the press release.
Researchers at Drexel University have shared promising findings on the development of a self-heating concrete, which could not only save people the hassle of shoveling out the sidewalk on a snowy day, but it could also reduce the use of salt to deice walkways.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), salts used for deicing can runoff into local waterways, leading to contamination. High chloride levels in the water can be toxic to aquatic life, while salts on sidewalks and roads accumulate and can kill the wildlife on land that eat them. These salts can also damage roads, vehicles, bridges and other infrastructure, leading to $5 billion in repairs per year in the U.S.
The researchers’ self-heating concrete is currently in use on Drexel’s campus by way of two 30-by-30-inch slabs of the material, which they have been developing for the past 5 years. The two slabs on campus have been in action for the past 3 years.
In field tests, the slabs have so far been effective in keeping snow, sleet and ice buildup at bay, even when the rest of the surroundings have needed to be shoveled or salted.
“One way to extend the service life of a concrete surfaces, like roadways, is to help them maintain a surface temperature above freezing during the winter,” Amir Farnam, associate professor in the College of Engineering, whose Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab leads the research, said in a statement. “Preventing freezing and thawing and cutting back on the need for plowing and salting are good ways to keep the surface from deteriorating. So, our work is looking at how we can incorporate special materials in the concrete that help it to maintain a higher surface temperature when the ambient temperature around it drops.”
The concrete material uses a low-temperature liquid paraffin to help the slab release heat, even when the outdoor air gets colder. The researchers combined the liquid paraffin directly into the concrete mix for one slab; for the other slab, the team treated a lightweight aggregate made up of small pebbles and stone pieces with liquid paraffin. They also created a control slab of traditional concrete.
Then, it was time to begin testing. The slabs have experienced 32 times when temperature dropped below freezing and five times when snow fell over 1 inch. For the two slabs with the liquid paraffin, they maintained a temperature of 42 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 10 hours when temperatures dropped below freezing.
The slab that contained paraffin mixed into the concrete heated up faster, but did not stay warm for as long, while the slab with the treated aggregate was slower to warm but held its warmer temperature for longer. The team published their findings in the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and will continue their research to better determine how this material could be effective long-term.
The development of a self-heating concrete is one of several options experts are considering as alternatives to winter salts. Some other materials that have been used or tested for deicing include grape skin compounds, pickle or cheese brine and coffee grounds, although these alternatives may have negative environmental impacts as well. Heated snow mats and electric snow blowers could also be considered for snow removal.
Gloria Alonso Cruz had only just started working on environmental justice issues at a community organization in Stockton, California, when she learned about a proposal to sell wood pellets from the town’s port to overseas energy markets.
Golden State Natural Resources plans to construct two wood pellet plants in Lassen and Tuolumne counties, about 250 miles north of Stockton, with the goal of exporting a million tons a year. While forest-based biomass may sound innocuous, every part of the pellet production chain bears an environmental justice or pollution risk, says Rita Vaughan Frost, forest advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council.
First, trees are logged and stacked on trucks to be driven to processing facilities. There, the wood is turned into small pellets, similar to rabbit food. Then, diesel trucks transport the material hundreds of miles to a shipping facility and export terminal, like the Port of Stockton — where storage poses a fire risk. The pellets are later shipped to markets in Europe and Asia, where they’re burned to create electricity, generating carbon emissions.
Golden State Natural Resource’s proposal would allow it to harvest trees from forests within 100 miles of the two processing plants. This radius includes sixteen national forests in a region known for its critical biodiversity. A 20-year master stewardship agreement established with the U.S. Forest Service will allow the company to harvest from public lands through 2045, when the state is slated to achieve carbon neutrality.
Many might be surprised to learn that burning wood pellets causes more pollution per unit of electricity than coal does, says Shaye Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s worsening the climate emergency at a time when we’ve got to be rapidly cutting those carbon emissions,” Wolf says.
In Stockton, the threat of logging exports compounds environmental injustices that already exist. State laws don’t prevent companies from building polluting facilities in already overburdened areas, nor is there any statute or legal framework that forces corporations to consider federal goals of transitioning toward renewable energy sources.
This means there are no federal or state guardrails to protect against the fact that “developers are not accounting for cumulative impacts, [or] the fact that these natural resources are finite,” Cruz says. In fact, Stockton already has a lot of pollution: It ranks in the 90th percentile statewide, according to CalEnviroScreen, an environmental hazard mapping tool. Compared with other cities across California, Stockton’s has some of the highest overall exposure to toxins like ozone, particulate matter, and groundwater threats.
Cruz says that is intentional, noting the communities of color and farmworkers who live and work in the state’s Central Valley have always shouldered the public health consequences that industries leave in their wake. In fact, California funneled public funds to the biomass industry in the 1980s and 1990s to support the construction of factories in low-income communities. Now, the wood pellet biomass industry and Golden State Natural Resources are poised to make the situation worse.
In 2015, the state approved a new law that requires polluting corporations, like the wood pellet industry, to pay for environmental justice projects in disadvantaged cities like Stockon, but advocates like Cruz argue that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to pollute in the first place. Across the state, at least four active biomass plants are in census tracts that face the worst pollution burden.
Looking at how the biomass industry currently operates in the Southeastern United States heightens residents’ worries. Companies there have a track record of preying on overburdened, under-resourced communities, says Vaughan Frost.
In the South, pellet mills are 50 percent more likely to be placed in communities of color that fall below the state poverty line. Although the industry likes to talk about providing jobs, in one North Carolina community, the poverty rate actually increased after a wood pellet production plant began operations.
Wherever pellet mills take root, pollution soon follows. A powerful odor, akin to plastic burning in a campfire, often emanates from these processing facilities. Heather Hillaker, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, says that processing the wood creates volatile organic compounds, which mix with other pollutants to create ground level ozone and smog. Processing facilities also release toxins like formaldehyde, methanol, and acrolein, substances that can cause cancer even in small doses.
Hillaker warns that federal standards established by the Clean Air Act don’t take into consideration the multiple forms of pollution that overburdened communities face, she says.
“I’ve not really seen the pellet industry directly address, in any kind of meaningful way, the environmental justice impacts of their operations in the South,” Hillaker says. She explains they often argue “We are complying with our permits and therefore we’re not causing any harm.” But she says, “That’s not an accurate representation of what’s actually happening in these local communities.”
Vaughan Frost is concerned that Golden State Natural Resources will similarly undermine the health and wellbeing of California communities.
Vaughan Frost believes the industry is “exploiting the state’s traumatic experience of catastrophic wildfires to sell their plan.” The company claims that cutting down forests will provide less fuel for wildfires — a claim that the state of California has historically parroted. Many scientists disagree. One recent study found that in fire-prone western states, emissions related to broad-scale thinning biomass harvest were five times greater than those related to wildfire. California also has a history of lumping in wood pellet biomass as a “renewable” energy source, which critics say obfuscates the compounding climate threats of the industry. She says these claims — that logging can prevent wildfires and create renewable energy — are a distraction from legitimate wildfire prevention strategies, like home hardening and vegetation management.
Advocates worry that once the forest is gone, recovery will be difficult. The wood pellet industry will soon be making incursions throughout the Sierra Nevadas, a much-loved mountain range that regularly draws outdoor tourists. Though the industry pledges to replant what they log, as climate change intensifies, there’s no guarantee monoculture saplings will be able to provide the same ecosystem services that the logged forest once did.
With abundant wind and solar energy available, Vaughan Frost says, “We do not need to sacrifice California forests and communities for this.”
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law, and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing, and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Learn more at http://www.nrdc.org and follow on Twitter @NRDC.
Feeling guilty about all those blue-and-white plastic Amazon bags piling up around the house? Fear not — they can be recycled! At least, that’s what the packaging says.
For years now, Amazon’s plastic bags, bubble-lined mailers, and air pillows have featured the ubiquitous “chasing arrows” recycling symbol along with the words “store drop-off.” The idea is simple: Since most curbside recycling programs don’t accept this type of plastic — it’s too expensive to process and can clog machines — consumers can instead leave it at retail stores across the country. From there, this plastic, known as “film,” will go to a specialized facility and be turned into new products.
The problem, however, is that the system doesn’t seem to be working.
An investigation published Tuesday by the nonprofits Environment America and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, or U.S. PIRG, suggests that only a small fraction of Amazon’s plastic packaging makes it to a material recovery facility, the term for operations that sort glass, metal, plastic, and other items for recycling. The packaging is much more likely to end up in a landfill, incinerator, export terminal, or in the hands of a company that downcycles plastic film into things like benches.
The report adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that store drop-off programs are an ineffective solution to the escalating plastic pollution crisis. According to environmental groups, these programs help justify the ongoing production of single-use plastic, helping manufacturers and retailers evade accountability while alleviating consumer guilt.
“The store drop-off system is really not working, and plastic film is not recyclable,” said Jenn Engstrom, state director of U.S. PIRG’s California chapter and a co-author of the report.
To find out what happens to Amazon’s plastic packaging, U.S. PIRG and Environment America attached small tracking devices — mostly Apple AirTags — to 93 bundles of Amazon plastic packaging marked for store drop-off and deposited them at retailers in 10 states. These stores, which were listed in an online directory, included mostly supermarkets like Safeway, Sprouts, Publix, Fred Meyer, QFC, and Whole Foods, although some bundles were placed at outlets like Kohl’s or Home Depot.
A drop-off receptacle for plastic bags at a grocery store in Palo Alto, California.
Paul Saukma / AP Photo
The report authors were able to determine the fate of about half the bundles, since, as expected, many of the trackers likely died before reaching a final destination. Of those that survived, 13 went to a landfill, two went to a waste incinerator, and three went to the Port of Los Angeles, suggesting that the bundles were destined for processing or disposal overseas.
Only four trackers eventually made their way to a material recovery facility that sorts plastics for recycling. U.S. PIRG and Environment America said they were able to contact three of those facilities: Two specifically said they do not accept Amazon packaging, and the third said it accepts only paper and cardboard.
Two dozen trackers ended up in the hands of Trex, a company that makes benches and decking out of discarded plastic. But U.S. PIRG and Environment America question whether Trex is using Amazon packaging in its products; the contents of store drop-off bins are often littered with food and beverages, likely rendering this plastic too contaminated to use in manufacturing.
Trex did not respond to Grist’s request for comment, but a similar company reports getting 70 to 80 percent of its plastic from “back-of-the-house shrink wrap,” referring to the material wrapped around shipping pallets, which tends to be cleaner than postconsumer plastic. Meanwhile, a Trex executive told Bloomberg News last year that there is not enough demand for recycled material to make store drop-off successful.
“All the claims the companies are making are just greenwashing,” he told Bloomberg. “Recycling’s failed.”
While USPIRG and Environment America’s investigation may be the largest of its kind, it isn’t the first to find flaws in the store drop-off system. Last year, Bloomberg tracked 30 bundles of packaging and wrappers marked with the store drop-off icon and found that 13 of them — more than 40 percent — ended up at U.S. landfills. Just four made it to locations that can recycle plastic. A similar effort from ABC News found that about half of 46 bundles of plastic bags went to landfills and incinerators, while only four went to facilities “that say they are involved with recycling plastic bags.”
In 2023, Dell dropped off Amazon plastic packaging (left) at an Albertsons in San Clemente, California. It turned up months later at a warehouse dump pile in Malaysia (right). Photos courtesy of The Last Beach Cleanup.
Jan Dell, an independent chemical engineer and founder of the environmental nonprofit The Least Beach Cleanup, has been deploying her own trackers too. Since December 2022, she hasn’t traced a single bundle of film labeled for store drop-off to U.S. facilities that can turn the material into new bags. Twelve bundles have been sent to a landfill or waste station, and one to an incinerator. Four appeared to have traveled to Mexico, Vietnam, or Malaysia, countries that generally lack adequate recycling infrastructure.
“They’re absolutely lying with these labels,” Dell said. The store drop-off system has “never worked, it was never true.”
The labels in question are produced by an initiative called How2Recycle, which began selling them to big companies in 2012 — supposedly to clear up confusion among consumers and retailers about which products could be recycled. The initiative issues several versions of the recycling icon, with the one marked “store drop-off” reserved for products, like plastic bags and film, that aren’t accepted in curbside recycling programs.
The store drop-off labels direct consumers to How2Recycle’s website, which links to a directory of retail locations with ]collection receptacles. Until last year, that directory was found at BagandFilmDirectory.org and featured more than 18,000 locations — but the consulting firm managing it shut it down following ABC News’ investigation, citing a lack of “real commitment from the industry,” as well as insufficient funding. Many of the locations listed did not actually have a receptacle, while the Target and Walmart locations appeared to be disposing of, rather than recycling, much of the film they received.
“There’s more of an illusion of stuff getting recycled than there actually is because there is an imbalance in supply and demand,” Nina Butler, CEO of the consulting firm, told ABC News. How2Recycle now links customers to a different directory hosted at Earth911. How2Recycle did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.
As scrutiny has increased over the use of the store drop-off label, some companies have pledged to stop using it altogether. Mondelez, which owns brands including Oreo and Ritz, said in March 2023 that it plans to phase out the label by 2025. Dell said she’s also noticed the label’s disappearance from packaging sold by Target and Georgia Pacific, a company that sells toilet paper, paper towels, and other pulp products. Target and Georgia Pacific did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.
Amazon, for its part, did not respond to Grist’s questions about its use of the store drop-off label. When Dell asked the company, during a Zoom meeting in 2020 that she shared with Grist, to provide evidence that its packaging is widely recycled through the store drop-off program — as required by California law — an Amazon spokesperson told the state recycling commission that the company has “really high confidence that store drop-off is a solution that is available in California.”
Pat Lindner, Amazon’s vice president of mechatronics and sustainable packaging, told Grist that the company has no control over how its packaging is handled “once it has been disposed of by municipalities or recycling centers.” A spokesperson said the company is investing in better recycling infrastructure while also reducing plastics use overall. As of last year, for example, Amazon has eliminated plastic from shipments delivered in Europe, likely in response to EU regulations banning several categories of single-use plastic. The company also eliminated plastic packaging in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to ban single-use plastic nationwide by 2022.
In the U.S. last year, Amazon launched an automated fulfillment center in Euclid, Ohio, that uses paper exclusively instead of plastic packaging, and the company said it’s ramping up a program to ship items in their original packages instead of extra plastic ones. The company also said in a 2022 sustainability report that it was “phasing out padded bags containing plastics in favor of recyclable alternatives,” but the spokesperson did not address Grist’s request to clarify the timeline for this transition.
Environmental advocates agree that Amazon has made progress, but say it should be doing more to reduce the hundreds of millions of pounds of single-use plastic trash it generates every year — and that it should remove the How2Recycle symbol from its packaging. In California, where state legislation often sets a national standard, a truth-in-advertising law signed by the governor in 2021 may soon restrict the use of store drop-off labels unless companies can prove that the system is effective. A separate law will require single-use plastic packaging sold in the state to be demonstrably recycled at least 65 percent of the time by 2032, a threshold that may push manufacturers toward paper, which is far easier to recycle.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
On a Saturday in February, high school senior Kaylee Lemmien sifted through racks of dresses at Tinker Tailor, a small shop in downtown Elk Rapids, a village of about 1,500 people in northern Michigan.
“I’d call this a mermaid, sequin, light blue gown with a tulle skirt. It’s got a lace-up back, kind of open,” Lemmien said. “Very pretty.”
Tinker Tailor usually alters clothes, but on this day it was selling them — prom dresses, to be exact. Gowns in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors — short and long, neons and pastels, satin and sequins — lined the racks. The garments were donated and consigned by people around the region, with the goal of giving them a new life at the Elk Rapids High School prom in May. Called Sustainable Style, the secondhand shopping initiative takes aim at fast fashion.
Zoe Macaluso, the president of the Eco Club at Elk Rapids High School, said that when a local volunteer group approached her with the idea, she “immediately latched onto it.” The Eco Club wants to use the project to lead by example and hopefully inspire other schools in the area to pursue their own climate projects.
Kaylee Lemmien, left, browses used evening gowns at the Sustainable Style event in Elk Rapids, Michigan, on February 17.
Grist / Izzy Ross
It’s one of many efforts by high school students around the country to address fast fashion — clothing produced cheaply and quickly enough to stay on top of swiftly moving trend cycles — in their own lives and through advocacy. Such efforts are small, but experts say they can help people — especially young people — think differently about their role as consumers. That’s especially relevant in the age of fast fashion, when an online retailer like Shein drops up to 10,000 new items a day.
“Fast fashion is a trend driven by newness,” said Shipra Gupta, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois Springfield. “It tends to treat its products like food that spoils quickly.”
A typical #SheinHaul video on TikTok, like the one above, shows content creators dumping boxes crammed with individually wrapped items of clothing.
One way high school students are counteracting that offline is by raising awareness in their communities about how fashion impacts the environment. Last year, for example, a high school in New York put on a carbon-neutral prom. A club in New Hampshire organized a clothing drive to divert used clothes to people experiencing homelessness. And a library in Athens, Georgia, regularly hosts a “Bling Your Prom” secondhand formal wear event with an eye toward sustainability.
Fast fashion encourages people to cycle through clothing quickly, with serious consequences. But getting reliable information on just how much damage the fashion industry inflicts on the climate is difficult. Its lack of transparency is one reason for that; less than half of brands track all levels of their complex supply chains. Some have made climate pledges but have consistently fallen short of their goals. And while key legislation that would help tackle the problem is pending in places in the U.S. and Europe, policy progress has been slow.
Constantly being exposed to new items can trigger a desire to buy more, said Gupta. By bringing an event like Sustainable Style to the community, she said, the students in Michigan are harnessing that excitement and channeling it toward more environmentally conscious shopping.
“Community involvement is a way of doing that grassroots-level movement, where we can actually create an awareness among the community members,” she said, and that can make them consider what it means to be a responsible consumer.
Events like Sustainable Style can cut back on consumption locally, providing a responsible place to donate and buy used evening wear. That’s important especially in small towns where options can be limited.
In the past, students in Elk Rapids usually ordered dresses online or traveled to hubs like Grand Rapids, a two-hour drive south.
“You kind of have to drive to Grand Rapids, and you have to go to a mall, and you have to buy a new dress,” said Macaluso. “This just provides another option, another opportunity to say, ‘Oh, I have a chance here to help the environment a little bit. So I’m going to take it.’”
Perhaps most importantly, initiatives like these can help others outside the confines of high school prom think about how fashion relates to the environment.
“I think it’s very meaningful, because it starts to engage consumers, especially the young generation,” said Sheng Lu, an associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.
Although the Elk Rapids effort is relatively small, Lu said, it can help inspire local action.
“I honestly was pretty nervous coming in here,” said sophomore Addison Looney, who was shopping with her mom. “But there were a lot of great selections. … I was pretty indecisive about it. But I picked [one] out.”
The dress is a soft lavender with beading in the front. Addison’s mom, Sara, said she was excited to buy her daughter a secondhand dress.
“Knowing this is just a great opportunity to shop local, and to obviously save money,” she said. “But also just the resale aspect of it — to just kind of keep dresses going, because they’re usually a one-time use.”
Macaluso said they’ve been able to stoke interest in buying used clothing. The prom event even led Tinker Tailor — which had mainly been in the business of altering clothes, not selling them — to set up a “Dress Vault” in the store so people could continue consigning, donating, and shopping for secondhand items.
“I think it really just builds off that idea of, ‘Hey, these dresses didn’t go bad, they haven’t expired,’” she said. “And they can find a new home.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 100,000 Asian elephants were living in the wild. Now, it is estimated that just 52,000 remain. Among the reasons for their decline — in addition to poaching and human-elephant conflict — is the boom of newly built roads and railways, which lead to collisions, habitat loss and fragmentation and the blocking of migration routes.
To help with this crisis, an international team of experts has created the first handbook on how to protect endangered Asian elephants from this widespread hazard.
“Elephants need to move to survive — to find food, water, and mates. In some cases, new roads and railways are being built right across ancient Asian elephant migration routes,” said Rob Ament, handbook co-author, Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG) co-chair and senior conservationist with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC), in a press release from AsETWG.
According to the press release, authors of the handbook included nine elephant and transport ecology experts from AsETWG, along with two staff members from CLLC.
The goal is to put the resource into the hands of government officials, transportation planners, engineers, policymakers, financiers and others who would find it useful in the 13 nations where wild Asian elephants still roam.
Ament said that, due to the rapid rate at which linear infrastructure is being developed in Asia, Asian elephants will become increasingly impacted by roads and railways. This makes it all the more essential to avoid and mitigate these impacts in order to protect the endangered species.
A newly constructed elephant overpass spanning a new railway line in southeastern Bangladesh reconnects an elephant travel corridor. Bangladesh Railway
“This publication combines decades of experience from the contributors and is a prime example of collaboration across sectors and political boundaries to tackle a serious conservation issue,” said co-author of the handbook Melissa Butynski, AsETWG coordinator and an international connectivity project specialist with CLLC, in the press release.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists Asian elephants as “endangered,” with increasingly isolated populations in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bhutan, China, Bangladesh, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Nepal.
“People living and working in countries with Asian elephants see the very real threats from linear infrastructure this incredible species faces. There is a sense of urgency to act before it’s too late,” Butynski said.
The authors of the handbook plan to introduce its recommendations in the countries where Asian elephants still live. They will help facilitate solutions through in-person workshops and webinars for conservationists, researchers, government officials and others with the desire to protect these majestic and gentle creatures.
“I hope these guidelines find wide usage across the elephant range and that it is adapted and translated into local languages, so that its use across all 13 countries that still have the Asian elephant is encouraged,” wrote Vivek Menon, author of the foreword to the handbook, Wildlife Trust of India co-founder and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Asian Elephant Specialist Group, in the press release.
Swiss air quality monitoring company IQAir has released its sixth World Air Quality Report, detailing 2023’s most polluted countries and territories in the world.
In compiling the report, more than 30,000 monitoring stations in 134 nations, territories and regions were examined by IQAir scientists, a press release from IQAir said. Of these, 124 — 92.5 percent — exceeded the annual guideline set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
“Causing an estimated one in every nine deaths worldwide, air pollution is the greatest environmental threat to human health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is responsible for an estimated seven million premature deaths worldwide every year,” IQAir said.
Meanwhile, the most polluted countries last year were Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso.
“A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right. In many parts of the world the lack of air quality data delays decisive action and perpetuates unnecessary human suffering. Air quality data saves lives. Where air quality is reported, action is taken, and air quality improves,” said Frank Hammes, IQAir Global CEO, in the press release.
The most underrepresented continent in the report was Africa, where one-third of the population does not have access to data on air quality. Just 24 of 54 countries on the continent had sufficient monitoring data, IQAir said, as CNN reported.
In Southeast Asia, almost every country saw PM2.5 concentrations rise, with transboundary haze and climate conditions affecting the region.
The planet’s ten most polluted cities in 2023 were all located in Central and South Asia. The four most polluted were in India, with Begusarai taking the top spot.
“We see that in every part of our lives that air pollution has an impact,” Hammes said, as reported by CNN. “And it typically, in some of the most polluted countries, is likely shaving off anywhere between three to six years of people’s lives. And then before that will lead to many years of suffering that are entirely preventable if there’s better air quality.”
In the United States, the most polluted city was Beloit, Wisconsin, while the most polluted major city was Columbus, Ohio, the report said.
On the flipside, the cleanest major U.S. city was Las Vegas.
Fine particulate matter has been linked to many serious health issues.
“Exposure to PM2.5 air pollution leads to and exacerbates numerous health conditions, including but not limited to asthma, cancer, stroke, and lung disease. Additionally, exposure to elevated levels of fine particles can impair cognitive development in children, lead to mental health issues, and complicate existing illnesses including diabetes,” IQAir said.
For the first time, the report found Canada to be North America’s most polluted country with 13 of the most polluted cities in the region located there.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, low-cost sensors were used to gather 70 percent of the air quality data collected in real-time.
“While the number of countries and regions with air quality monitoring has steadily increased over the past six years, there remain significant gaps in government-operated regulatory instrumentation in many parts of the world,” IQAir explained. “Low-cost air quality monitors, sponsored and hosted by citizen scientists, researchers, community advocates, and local organizations, have proven to be valuable tools to reduce gaps in air monitoring networks across the world.”
According to independent air quality monitors, there has been a disproportionate amount of exposure to harmful air among underrepresented and vulnerable groups. Gaps in the monitoring data in places where air quality is likely poor highlight the necessity of expanding global air quality monitoring coverage.
“IQAir’s annual report illustrates the international nature and inequitable consequences of the enduring air pollution crisis. Local, national, and international effort is urgently needed to monitor air quality in under-resourced places, manage the causes of transboundary haze, and cut our reliance on combustion as an energy source,” said Aidan Farrow, Greenpeace International senior air quality scientist, in the press release. “In 2023, air pollution remained a global health catastrophe. IQAir’s global data set provides an important reminder of the resulting injustices and the need to implement the many solutions that exist to this problem.”
The report pointed out that, by changing weather patterns that affect rainfall and wind, the climate crisis has a major influence on air pollution levels, as CNN reported. And as extreme heat events happen more frequently and become increasingly severe, it will lead to increased air pollution.
“We have such a strong overlap of what’s causing our climate crisis and what’s causing air pollution,” Hammes said, as reported by CNN. “Anything that we can do to reduce air pollution will be tremendously impactful in the long term also for improving our climate gas emissions, and vice versa.”
