The vision

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”

Photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams

The spotlight

As a writer, I obviously have a fondness for words. I believe in their power — while also recognizing their limitations. Much as we try to “show, not tell” through the written word, an article can’t quite approximate letting someone see or experience something for themselves. Photos and videos, on the other hand, come pretty darn close.

Visual storytellers have to be immersed in the scenes they capture, up close to the people, animals, plants, and landscapes they create images of. They document things that many people otherwise wouldn’t get to see with their own eyes. It’s a powerful medium, with a well-established history of stirring viewers to care about climate change and conservation. But high-quality, thought-provoking photography and film is also time-consuming and expensive to create, putting it out of reach for many would-be climate communicators and storytelling organizations.

It’s a problem that Kogia, a nonprofit media library, is attempting to solve. The library offers photos and video clips, free of charge, to scientists, conservation organizations, artists, activists, and others.

“Our mission has been to democratize access to this media in a way, and to elevate the voices of those who are on the front line of conservation and just give them the best tools possible for them to tell their stories,” said Nessim Stevenson, a filmmaker and photographer who founded the project along with his cousin, and fellow photographer, Karim Iliya. They saw a great need to make high-quality images more readily available to conservationists and mission-driven organizations as an essential communication tool.

“I had a lot of nonprofits that were asking me for photos and videos to use as I was photographing underwater worlds — whales and turtles and manta rays and coral reefs, from the big animals to the little tiny creatures,” Iliya said. He knew other environmental photographers must be getting the same types of requests, and wanted to create a platform that would enable these organizations to get the resources they needed to further their work, while easing some of the strain on individual creators fielding these requests. The pair published a beta form of the project in the spring of 2023, which Stevenson describes as a “clunky version that we made ourselves in Squarespace.” Still, they quickly garnered more than 100 members, from over 40 countries. This year, on Earth Day, they launched Kogia 2.0 — a more robust library that they built out with the help of a volunteer web developer, featuring the work of over a dozen creators.

The library also creates an opportunity to divert a certain type of waste. Only a tiny fraction of the images a photographer creates in the field will actually get licensed for prints or articles or other uses. The rest tend to sit on hard drives, essentially becoming “digital trash,” as Iliya put it. “It’s difficult to make money off of it, because it’s like the 10th best photo of a clam or a whale or a clownfish, and not the best one.” But these excess images are still good quality, and can be a gold mine for small organizations and individuals that don’t have the budget to license or commission original photos or film. “So we’re trying to reuse and recycle — basically put to use this stuff that would’ve just sat and rotted away,” Iliya said.

Kogia is ocean-focused right now, but Iliya and Stevenson ultimately plan to expand the library to include land ecosystems as well. They’re also starting a fellowship program that will involve sending out camera kits to young photographers and videographers all over the world who want to document conservation stories from a local perspective.

“The way we’ve been seeing some of the media used, from the anti-whaling movement in Iceland to student-led groups educating young kids about nature and their environment in South Asia, it’s been really surprising and exciting,” Iliya said.

Stevenson and Iliya shared a selection of their favorite images from the gallery, gathered below. These come from some of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth — like Palau, part of a coalition of small island states that have banded together to hold large nations accountable for climate impacts (and recently won a major victory from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea). Although some of the images in Kogia’s library offer a look at the impacts of climate change, industry, and pollution on ocean ecosystems, the majority, including these, focus instead on their beauty and how much there is to protect.

— Claire Elise Thompson

More exposure

• Read: about the famous “Earthrise” photo that galvanized the environmental movement in the late 1960s (BBC)
• Read: about some of the pitfalls that environmental photography has historically fallen into — including an overreliance on charismatic megafauna, like the polar bear (Grist)
• Read: about efforts to document and preserve some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems through the use of 3D mapping, VR, and other tools (Grist)
• Browse: Kogia’s Instagram, for more photos and video of marine wonders (and if you’re a storyteller, consider signing up for access to the library)

A parting shot

While showing the vibrance and beauty of marine wildlife and ecosystems, visual storytelling can also introduce a harsh juxtaposition with the threats those ecosystems face. This photo, for instance, shows an overhead view of an oil refinery off the coast of Long Beach, California. At first glance it looks peaceful, almost pretty. But a closer look reveals its sheer scale, and its nearness to the shoreline — where residents face some of the worst pollution in the country.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Grist

Spotlight: Karim Iliya; Nessim Stevenson; Pier Nirandara, Sophie Hart, Kieth Ladzinski, Cedric Dageville, Michel Zoghzoghi, Raja Iliya

Parting shot: Karim Iliya

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Photos help tell climate stories. This media library lets conservation orgs access them for free. on May 29, 2024.

When Cortni Borgerson thinks about the trillion or so periodical cicadas emerging from underground, she sees more than clumsily flying insects flitting from tree to tree in search of a mate. She sees lunch.

Some may find that idea revolting, a belief often, if unknowingly, steeped in colonialism and the notion that eating insects is “uncivilized.” But Borgerson, an anthropologist at Montclair State University, is among those eager to change that perception. She’s a big fan of dining on bugs of all kinds, but finds cicadas particularly appetizing. “It’s one of the best American insects,” she says.

Their texture, she says, is something like peeled shrimp, and their taste akin to what you’d experience “if a chicken nugget and a sunflower seed had a baby.” She recommends first timers cook them like any other meat and try them in tacos.

Borgerson’s not alone in her fascination with edible insects. In the lead up to this spring’s dual-brood emergence, a flurry of cicada recipes, sweet treats and culinary odes have sung the bulky bugs’ praises. The interest is part of a growing social movement in favor of alternative proteins among consumers increasingly demanding a more sustainable food system. 

“They’re this magical-looking insect that crawls up, that people are excited and interested in,” she says. “People are more excited about eating it than they might be about other types of insects.” 

The buzz around this cicada emergence provides an opportunity to break down misguided stereotypes and misconceptions about eating insects, Borgerson says. If you ask her, the creatures are more than tasty. They’re a sustainable alternative to carbon-intensive proteins like beef and an effective way of addressing rising rates of food insecurity. 

“Some insects have an incredible opportunity, and a potential, to reduce our carbon footprint in a delicious, but sustainable, way,” she says. 

Roughly 30 percent of the world’s population considers insects a delicacy or dietary staple, a practice that goes back millennia. A study published earlier this year found that over 3,000 ethnic groups across 128 countries eat 2,205 species of Insecta, with everything from caterpillars to locusts appearing in dishes of every description. These invertebrates are a rich source of protein, fat and vitamins. The creatures are most commonly eaten by consumers in Asia, North America — predominantly Mexico, where people enjoy 450 varieties  — and Africa.

The idea remains a novelty in the United States, where just six species are regularly consumed (crickets being the most popular). Consumer attitudes, based on old stigmas, remain a hurdle to broader acceptance.

Julie Lesnik, an anthropologist at Wayne State University who studies the Western bias toward eating things like beetles, calls the “ick” response many Americans have toward the idea a cultural byproduct of colonization.

“Disgust is felt very viscerally and biologically,” she says. “So to tell somebody their aversion to insects is cultural and not physiologically programmed is a difficult thing to wrap your head around, because you can feel your stomach turn, you can feel the gag reflex come up if you are disgusted by the idea of eating insects. But disgust is one of the few learned emotions. So we are disgusted by the things our culture tells us to be disgusted by.” 

Such a reaction also can be a sign of internalized prejudice, she says. Indigenous peoples throughout North America once consumed a variety of insects, a practice European colonists deemed “uncivilized” — a way to “other” nonwhite communities and cultural practices. “Is it racist? Yes, simply put,” Lesnik says. 

The racialized foundation of that ideology has garnered scrutiny in the wake of viral right wing claims that a shadowy global elite will make people eat insects. Politicized conspiracy theories — like the suggestion that Bill Gates will take away meat and force everyone to eat insects — are insidious misinformation that Joseph Yoon fights daily. 

“The very notion of edible insects, I believe, has people think about the lowest denominator,” says Yoon, the founder of Brooklyn Bugs and chef advocate for the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development. “It’s for the apocalypse. It’s for poor people. It’s for marginalized communities in developing nations. And so the very notion of this creates a sense of fear, anger, resentment. Instead of putting insects in a silo because you don’t understand … we can work together to provide solutions for our global food systems.”

Eleven years ago, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization called bugs a promising alternative to conventional meat production. In the decade since, a surge of North American startups have launched to make insects into a primary food source for humans, an ingredient (flour is common), or as feedstock for cattle and pets. The market for such things in the United States is expected to hit $1.1 billion by 2033; globally, the figure is more than three times that. 

Still, for an industry in its infancy, the viability of scaling insect protein into a legitimate climate solution remains a burning question, one Rachel Mazac has studied intently. Mazac, a sustainability researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, is among the scientists that have attempted to quantify the carbon footprint of producing things like crickets, mealworms and black soldier flies on an industrial scale. So far, she’s found that insects make “extremely efficient” use of land and water compared to conventional livestock. Although she acknowledges the dearth of data on the subject, Mazac thinks insects warrant further consideration as a feasible alternative to more common — and carbon-intensive — meats. 

Not everyone sees insects as a climate solution, however. Matthew Hayek, an environmental researcher and assistant professor at New York University, co-authored a 2024 survey of more than 200 climate and agricultural scientists that showed widespread support for greater efforts by governments and the private sector to incentivize alternatives to meat and dairy. But he doesn’t believe insects belong on the slate of urgent solutions. Among other things, he questions the environmental impact of feeding them to livestock, and whether the creatures can be raised and harvested humanely.

“It’s a worthwhile area of investigation for fundamental science and research and development,” he says. “It is not worthwhile as an actual climate solution at a market level for somebody to invest in a climate solution.” 

Jeffery Tomberlin, an entomologist at Texas A&M University and director of the Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Farming, doesn’t buy that. He says every possible alternative protein needs to be on the table because meeting the climate crisis requires reforming the global food system. “We should be looking at all options when we talk about how to be better stewards of our planet,” he says. “We need to diversify as much as possible.”

Doing that, however, will require consumers and policymakers to put aside old ideas and consider new possibilities. That, Tomberlin says, would prompt the kind of research and funding needed to “safely and efficiently” develop the processing and production practices needed to make insect protein a viable, scalable alternative to other meats. Only then will the idea of eating insects be more than a flurry of trendy headlines, and cicada tacos more than a fleeting novelty.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Cicadas à la carte? Here’s why it’s so hard to get Americans to eat bugs. on May 29, 2024.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration unveiled new guidelines on “responsible participation” in the voluntary carbon market, or VCM — the system that allows companies to say they’ve canceled out their greenhouse gas emissions through the purchase of carbon credits. Theoretically, every carbon credit a company buys represents one metric ton of CO2 that has been reduced or avoided through projects that wouldn’t have happened without the funding — like tree-planting or the installation of wind turbines.

The guidelines, signed by President Joe Biden’s top climate and economic advisers, as well as the secretaries of Treasury, Energy, and Agriculture, are intended to boost the market’s credibility following a series of investigations that revealed numerous credits to be ineffective. 

One guideline calls for credits to meet “credible atmospheric integrity standards,” and another says companies should complement offsetting with the reduction of their own carbon footprints. The guidelines also call for environmental justice safeguards to ensure that credit-generating activities — many of which are in the Global South — do not harm local communities.

For the most part, the 12-page document reflects existing guidance from informal overseers of the voluntary carbon market, including the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity initiative. In this way, the guidance is a sort of endorsement of the work those nonprofit governance bodies have already been doing — and of carbon markets themselves.

The new guidelines are intended to help address a crisis of confidence in carbon credits, many of which have been found by recent studies and investigations to be ineffective. Some credits come from renewable energy projects that would have been built anyway, even without funding from the VCM. Others are generated by protecting natural ecosystems that were never under threat. Still others are based on projects that store carbon in ways that are unlikely to last more than a few years. Last year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — a federal regulator — created a new task force to address potentially widespread fraud and market manipulation within the VCM.

According to a 2022 analysis from the World Economic Forum, less than one-fourth of 137 global companies surveyed planned to use carbon credits to achieve their emissions reduction targets; 40 percent of them cited the risk of reputational damage.

Some environmental groups hailed the Biden Administration’s guidance as a way to add legitimacy to the voluntary carbon market. Amanda Leland, executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “vote of confidence” could help the VCM reach $1 trillion by 2050, implying that this growth would funnel money into green jobs and climate resilience in the developing world. 

The global VCM is currently valued at around $2 billion. It grew rapidly in 2021 before declining in 2022 and 2023.

Critics said the new rules fail to address more fundamental concerns about the effectiveness of carbon credits. Some VCM offset projects send only a small fraction of the funds they generate to the communities they’re supposed to benefit, while the rest of the money gets gobbled up by traders, registries, investors, and other middlemen. And for a number of reasons, scientists say it’s inaccurate to equate a ton of carbon stored in biological systems with a ton of carbon released from the burning of fossil fuels — yet this assumption undergirds the VCM.

Proponents of carbon markets are still trying to “fit the circle of climate science into the square of carbon accounting,” Steve Suppan, a policy analyst for the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, told Grist.

Peter Riggs, director of the nonprofit Pivot Point and a co-coordinator of the Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance, said the federal guidelines are more concerned with creating a smooth market environment than with the integrity of carbon credits. 

“Generating rules for secondary markets and the clearing of credits may help with carbon market liquidity,” he told Grist. “But if the underlying accounting is still flawed, these moves just create systemic risk — in much the same way that credit default swaps did during the financial crisis.”

Instead of carbon markets, Riggs and others have advocated for a system of climate finance that allows countries, companies, and other polluters to support conservation and carbon-sequestering activities without claiming them as offsets.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Can carbon offsets actually work? The Biden administration thinks so. on May 29, 2024.

Author Kathy Freston joined Earth911 to talk about her new book with co-author Gene Stone,…

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Responsible sourcing is becoming a central focus for retailers as a way to strengthen their appeal to consumers while addressing expectations from investors and regulators. This includes de-linking their supply chains from deforestation, natural ecosystem conversion, and human rights abuses.

A new Data for Progress poll shared with The Guardian finds that most voters support litigation against big oil, while nearly half would also back the filing of criminal charges.

On May 3 and 4 of this year, Data for Progress and nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen surveyed 1,206 likely voters in the United States, asking the question of whether respondents believed that “oil and gas companies should be held legally accountable for their contributions to climate change,” including impacts on extreme weather and public health.

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“[V]oters strongly want to see companies held accountable for their harmful actions,” said Grace Adcox, Data for Progress senior climate strategist with Fossil Free Media, as The Guardian reported.

Lawsuits against big oil have been ramping up all over the world. Communities across the U.S. have been suing fossil fuel companies for allegedly misleading the public regarding the climate crisis, and just last week France brought the first-ever criminal lawsuit related to climate.

Currently there are 40 civil lawsuits brought by cities and states in the U.S. against oil majors.

Last year Public Citizen also proposed filing criminal charges against fossil fuel companies.

One argument for this strategy is that oil and gas companies knowing their pollution had potential deadly consequences while delaying climate action could be possible grounds for reckless or negligent homicide charges.

According to Aaron Regunberg, Public Citizen’s climate program senior policy counsel, while the idea received some skepticism, several district attorneys’ offices gave it “real, serious interest,” reported The Guardian.

The Data for Progress poll showed that 62 percent of voters surveyed said fossil fuel companies “should be held legally accountable for their contributions to climate change.” This included 84 percent of Democrats, 40 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Independents.

The survey also asked, “Knowing what you do now, do you support or oppose criminal charges being filed against oil and gas companies to hold them accountable for deaths caused by their contributions to climate change?” to which 49 percent of respondents said they would “somewhat” or “strongly” support such action, in comparison with 39 percent who indicated they would not.

Regunberg said this shows that Americans may not feel the idea is too “out there.”

Regunberg went on to say that 68 percent of Democrats indicating support for criminal charges being brought against big oil was “huge,” since the party’s districts were more likely to bring that type of legal action. Almost a third of Republicans — 32 percent — said they would back the idea.

“A significant number of Republicans would support these prosecutions, even if none of their party’s leaders have the courage to buck their fossil fuel donors,” Regunberg said, as The Guardian reported.

Adcox added that, while gaining political support for criminal lawsuits against fossil fuel companies might not be easy, the survey indicates it could be possible.

“These national findings show these cases may be able to earn popular support, particularly in blue jurisdictions,” Adcox said.

Fossil fuel companies in the U.S. have not yet been forced to face criminal climate charges, but energy companies have. BP and PG&E both pled guilty to charges of homicide and paid fines and penalties in the billions of dollars.

“The fact that this hasn’t been done before may lead many to say, well, it can’t be done, there’s no precedent. But there was no precedent for anything until there was,” said Chesa Boudin, former San Francisco district attorney, as reported by The Guardian.

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With Heat Action Day approaching on June 2, a new report from World Weather Attribution, the Red Cross Crescent Climate Centre and Climate Central has found that the planet experienced 26 more days of “excess” extreme heat on average in the past year, which most likely would not have happened without climate change.

Last year was the hottest ever recorded, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate observation program.

“Flooding and hurricanes may capture the headlines, but the impacts of extreme heat are equally deadly. That’s why Heat Action Day matters so much. We need to focus attention on climate change’s silent killer. The IFRC is making heat — and urban action to reduce its impacts — a priority and remains committed to working with communities that are at risk of extreme heat through our global network of National Societies,” said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Secretary-General Jagan Chapagaina in a press release from IFRC.

Heat Action Day brings attention to the dangers of extreme heat and steps that can be taken to mitigate it. All over the world, Red Crescent and National Red Cross Societies are sharing strategies on a dedicated website. People are also being encouraged to share artwork and hold events that underscore the dangers extreme heat poses to lives and livelihoods.

The ongoing Asia heat wave has been bringing excessive temperatures to Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Nepal, causing many deaths and heat-related health issues.

In Bangladesh, the extreme heat has affected more than 120 million people, and Myanmar experienced its hottest temperature ever recorded of 118.8 degrees Fahrenheit on April 28.

Heat waves most affect those who work outside, as well as vulnerable populations like the old, young and poor.

“This report provides overwhelming scientific evidence that extreme heat is a deadly manifestation of the climate crisis. This wreaks havoc on human health, critical infrastructure, the economy, agriculture and the environment, thereby eroding gains in human development and decreasing wellbeing – especially for poor and marginalized communities in the global South,” said Aditya V. Bahadur, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre director, in the press release.

Heat is the biggest cause of climate-related deaths, reported AFP.

In the study, the researchers looked at the top 10 percent of temperatures for each country studied during the period 1991 to 2020. They then examined the 12 months from May 15, 2023 to May 15 of this year in order to find out the number of days temperatures were within or above the previous range.

Using peer-reviewed methods, the scientists then looked at how climate change had influenced each of the excessively hot days.

Their conclusion was that, over the past year, “human-caused climate change added an average of 26 days of extreme heat (on average, across all places in the world) than there would have been without a warmed planet,” the report said.

The report also said that, in the 12 months of the study period, approximately 80 percent of the world’s population — about 6.3 billion people — experienced a minimum of 31 days of extreme heat, AFP reported.

Across 90 countries, 76 extreme heat waves occurred, with all continents except Antarctica affected. Five of the most impacted countries were in Latin America.

“That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people,” said Andrew Pershing, one of the study’s researchers and Climate Central’s vice president for science, as The New York Times reported. “It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.”

The report highlighted that, without climate change’s influence, Ecuador would have recorded roughly 10 days of extreme heat instead of 180; Panama 12 rather than 149; El Salvador 15 not 163; Guyana 33 rather than 174; and Suriname an estimated 24 instead of 182 sweltering days of excessive heat.

“Extreme heat is known to have killed tens of thousands of people over the last 12 months, but the real number is likely in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Unlike sudden ‘event’ weather disasters, heatwaves kill more slowly and less obviously; they are often exacerbators of pre-existing medical conditions,” IFRC said.

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What connects us all? Nature and our shared relationships through nature. Print or share We…

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Allie “Nokko” Johnson is a member of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and they love teaching young tribal members about recycling. Johnson helps them make Christmas ornaments out of things that were going to be thrown away, or melts down small crayons to make bigger ones.

“In its own way, recycling is a form of decolonization for tribal members,” Johnson said. “We have to decolonize our present to make a better future for tomorrow.“

The Coushatta Reservation, in southern Louisiana, is small, made up of about 300 tribal members, and rural — the nearest Walmart is 40 minutes away. Recycling hasn’t been popular in the area, but as the risks from climate change have grown, so has the tribe’s interest. In 2014, the tribe took action and started gathering materials from tribal offices and departments, created recycling competitions for the community, and started teaching kids about recycling. 

Recently, federal grant money has been made available to tribes to help start and grow recycling programs. Last fall, the Coushatta received $565,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency for its small operation. The funds helped repair a storage shed, build a facility for the community to use, and continue educational outreach. But it’s not enough to serve the area’s 3,000 residents of Native and non-Native recyclers for the long haul. 

Typically, small tribes don’t have the resources to run recycling programs because the operations have to be financially successful. Federal funding can offset heavy equipment costs and some labor, but educating people on how to recycle, coupled with long distances from processing facilities, make operation difficult. 

But that hasn’t deterred the Coushatta Tribe.

In 2021, the European Union banned single-use plastics like straws, bottles, cutlery, and shopping bags. Germany recycles 69 percent of its municipal waste thanks to laws that enforce recycling habits. South Korea enforces strict fees for violations of the nation’s recycling protocols and even offers rewards to report violators, resulting in a 60 percent recycling and composting rate. 

But those figures don’t truly illuminate the scale of the world’s recycling product. Around 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been manufactured since the 1950’s and researchers estimate that 91 percent of it isn’t recycled. In the United States, the Department of Energy finds that only 5 percent is recycled, while aluminum, used in packaging has a recycling rate of about 35 percent. The recycling rate for paper products, including books, mail, containers, and packaging, is about 68 percent.

There are no nationwide recycling laws in the U.S., leaving the task up to states, and only a handful of states take it seriously: Ten have “bottle bills,” which allow individuals to redeem empty containers for cash, while Maine, California, Colorado, and Oregon have passed laws that hold corporations and manufacturers accountable for wasteful packaging by requiring them to help pay for recycling efforts. In the 1960s, the U.S. recycling rate across all materials — including plastic, paper, and glass — was only 7 percent. Now, it’s 32 percent. The EPA aims to increase that number to 50 percent nationwide by 2030, but other than one law targeted at rural recycling moving through Congress, there are no overarching national recycling requirements to help make that happen. 

In 2021, Louisiana had a recycling rate of 2.9 percent, save for cities like New Orleans, where containers are available for free for residents to use to recycle everything from glass bottles to electronics to Mardi Gras beads. In rural areas, access to recycling facilities is scarce if it exists at all, leaving it up to local communities or tribal governments to provide it. There is little reliable data on how many tribes operate recycling programs.

“Tribal members see the state of the world presently, and they want to make a change,” said Skylar Bourque, who works on the tribe’s recycling program. “Ultimately, as a tribe, it’s up to us to give them the tools to do that.”

But the number one issue facing small programs is still funding. Cody Marshall, chief system optimization officer for The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit, said that many rural communities and tribal nations across the country would be happy to recycle more if they had the funds to do so, but running a recycling program is more expensive than using the landfill that might be next door. 

“Many landfills are in rural areas and many of the processing sites that manage recyclables are in urban areas, and the driving costs alone can sometimes be what makes a recycling program unfeasible,” he said.

The Recycling Partnership also provides grants for tribes and other communities to help with the cost of recycling. The EPA received 91 applications and selected 59 tribal recycling programs at various stages of development for this year, including one run by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma, which began its recycling program in 2010. Today, it collects nearly 50 metric tons of material a year — material that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill.

“Once you start small, you can get people on board with you,” said James Williams, director of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s Environmental Services. He is optimistic about the future of recycling in tribal communities. “Now I see blue bins all through the nation,” he said, referring to the recycling containers used by tribal citizens.

Williams’ department has cleaned up a dozen open dumps in the last two years, as well as two lagoons — an issue on tribal lands in Oklahoma and beyond. Illegal dumping can be a symptom of lack of resources due to waste management being historically underfunded. Those dumping on tribal land have also faced inadequate consequences. 

“We still have the issue of illegal dumping on rural roads,” he said, adding that his goal is to clean up as many as possible. “If you dump something, it’s going to hit a waterway.”

According to Williams, tribes in Oklahoma with recycling programs work together to address problems like long-distance transportation of materials and how to serve tribal communities in rural areas, as well as funding issues specific to tribes, like putting together grant applications and getting tribal governments to make recycling a priority. The Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma also partners with Durant, a nearby town. Durant couldn’t afford a recycling program of their own, so they directed recycling needs to the tribe. 

This year’s EPA grant to the Muscogee program purchases a $225,000 semitruck, an $80,000 truck for cardboard boxes, and a $200,000 truck that shreds documents. Muscogee was also able to purchase a $70,000 horizontal compactor, which helps with squishing down materials to help store them, and two $5,000 trailers for hauling. Williams’ recycling program operates in conjunction with the Muscogee solid waste program, so they share some of their resources. 

Returns on recycled material aren’t high. In California, for instance, one ton of plastic can fetch $167, while aluminum can go for $1,230. Corrugated cardboard can also vary wildly from $20 to $210 a ton. Prices for all recycled materials fluctuate regularly, and unless you’re dealing in huge amounts, the business can be hard. Those who can’t sell their material might have to sit on it until they can find a buyer, or throw it away. 

Last year, Muscogee Creek made about $100,000 reselling the materials it collected, but the program cost $250,000 to run. The difference is made up by profits from the Muscogee Creek Nation’s casino, which helps keep the recycling program free for the 101,252 tribal members who live on the reservation. The profits also help non-Natives who want to recycle. 

The Coushatta Tribe serves 3,000 people, Native and non-Native, and they have been rejected by 12 different recycling brokers – individuals that act as intermediaries between operations and buyers – due to the distance materials would have to travel. 

Allie Johnson said she couldn’t find a broker that was close enough, or that was willing to travel to the Coushatta Tribe to pick up their recycling. “We either bite the cost,” she said, “or commute and have to pay extra in gas. It’s exhausting.”

Currently, the only place near them that’s buying recyclables is St. Landry Parish Recycling Center, which only pays $0.01 per pound of cardboard. A truck bed full of aluminum cans only yields $20 from the nearest center, 90 minutes away. That’s how much the tribe expects to make for now. 

Still, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is not giving up.

With this new injection of federal money, they will eventually be able to store more materials, and hopefully, make money back on their communities’ recyclables. Much like the Muscogee Creek Nation, they see the recycling program as an amenity, but they still have hopes to turn it into a thriving business. 

In the meantime, the Coushatta keep up their educational programming, teaching children the value of taking care of the Earth, even when it’s hard. 

“It’s about maintaining the land,” Johnson said. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Recycling isn’t easy. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is doing it anyway. on May 28, 2024.