A relatively painless guide to cutting plastics in your life

Last year may have been the beginning of the end for plastic. It may have taken a while for the average person to wake up to its dangers, but many were shaken into action by the images and videos of plastic’s impact on the natural world that flooded the media in 2018.
Elizabeth Segran writes in Fast Company























A viral video showed a turtle with a straw stuck up its nose. Stories about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch revealed how island-sized trash mounds had collected in the ocean between Hawaii and California. And then there was that National Geographic cover of a plastic bag floating in the water, beneath the scrawled words “Planet or Plastic?” The issue publicized a remarkable statistic: Despite the world’s efforts to recycle, 91% ends up in the trash.
You may already be part of the growing number of people who are trying to ditch plastic. I’ve tried to faithfully bring my reusable Baggubags ($12) to the grocery store, and carry my own metal straw ($4 for three) with me when I go out to restaurants. I use S’well and BKR bottles ($25 and $45) instead of plastic water bottles. I like to congratulate myself for these small steps, but something weird happened once I began cutting down. I suddenly saw how much other plastic filled my kitchen, bathroom, and closet. I saw it in my toddler’s sippy cups and toys, in the cling film enveloping the meat and produce at the grocery store, and in the contents of my medicine cabinet. How could I ever hope to curb plastic, given that it’s woven into every part of my life?
As I’ve begun to explore more ways to cut down, I’ve realized that the task ahead is not as painful as it might seem. This is partly thanks to a flock of new startups coming up with alternatives to everyday plastic products. I’ve researched many of these brands and tested many of their products to give you a totally achievable, relatively painless, and very convenient guide to get started curbing your plastic use.

[Photo: Stasher] 

THE KITCHEN

Let’s tackle the hardest part first: your kitchen. If you look around, you’ll see that most food comes in plastic. It’s the cheapest material on the market, so brands use it to package food and families often use Ziploc bags, Saran wrap, and Tupperware to store it. But there are ways around it.

Buy in bulk: You don’t need to buy prepackaged food. Many grocery stores sell rice, pasta, beans, nuts, flour, and many other ingredients in bulk. And skip the plastic bags offered in-store. You can bring your own containers. Some people like to bring glass or stainless steel jars, but I find them heavy and inconvenient. You also need to figure out how much the jars weigh so that you can correctly tally the weight of the bulk food you’re buying.

Personally, I prefer carrying some lightweight silicone Stasher (starting at $10) bags with me, then store my food in jars when I get home. The company is launching a large, flat-bottomed bag on March 12 that is ideal for bulk buying.

No more packaged fruit: There’s no reason for produce to be packaged in plastic. (I’m looking at you, Trader Joe’s.) Most groceries sell their fruit and vegetables by weight, so just buy your items piecemeal if you can. When you get home, you can give your produce a wash when you’re preparing it. Eco-friendly brand Full Circle has a very handy veggie scrubber ($5) I keep by the sink.
Stock up on reusable containers and wraps: Clear out your Ziploc and Saran wrap drawer, and fill it with reusable versions. I now pack my daughter’s snacks in reusable Lunchskin bags (starting at $5) or paper sandwich bags ($4). They come in cute patterns, which is an extra perk for the toddler set.

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Cutbacks in local news leave some towns in the dark


Photo: ORLIN WAGNER / AP

David Bauder and David A. Lieb report for The Associated Press
 
WAYNESVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Five minutes late, Darrell Todd Maurina sweeps into a meeting room and plugs in his laptop computer. He places a Wi-Fi hotspot on the table and turns on a digital recorder. The earplug in his left ear is attached to a police scanner in his pants pocket.

He wears a tie; Maurina insists upon professionalism.

He is the press — in its entirety.

Maurina, who posts his work to Facebook, is the only person who has come to the Pulaski County courthouse to tell residents what their commissioners are up to, the only one who will report on their deliberations — specifically, their discussions about how to satisfy the Federal Emergency Management Agency so it will pay to repair a road inundated during a 2013 flood.

Last September, Waynesville became a statistic. With the shutdown of its newspaper, the Daily Guide, this town of 5,200 people in central Missouri’s Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities and towns across the U.S. to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University of North Carolina.

Blame revenue siphoned by online competition, cost-cutting ownership, a death spiral in quality, sheer disinterest among readers or reasons peculiar to given locales for that development. While national outlets worry about a president who calls the press an enemy of the people, many Americans no longer have someone watching the city council for them, chronicling the soccer exploits of their children or reporting on the kindly neighbor who died of cancer.

Local journalism is dying in plain sight.

A rock outcropping painted by a local tattoo artist to resemble a frog greets visitors who follow the old Route 66 into Waynesville. Along with its sister city St. Robert, the military towns are dominated by the nearby Fort Leonard Wood, which has kept the county’s population steadily around 50,000 for the past decade.

Five of Waynesville’s eight city council members are former military, and Mayor Luge Hardman says the meetings run efficiently as a result.

“This is a small town where you can be from somewhere else and not feel like an outsider,” said Kevin Hillman, Pulaski County prosecuting attorney.

The Daily Guide, which traces to 1962, was a family-owned paper into the 1980s before it was sold to a series of corporate owners that culminated with GateHouse Media Inc., the nation’s largest newspaper company. Five of the 10 largest newspaper companies are owned by hedge funds or other investors with several unrelated holdings, and GateHouse is among them, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies news industry trends.

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Critics have said GateHouse and some other newspaper companies follow a strategy of aggressive cost-cutting without making significant investments in newsrooms. GateHouse rejects the notion that their motivations are strictly financial, pointing to measures taken in Waynesville and elsewhere to keep the news flowing, said Bernie Szachara, the company’s president of U.S. newspaper operations.

All newspaper owners face a brutal reality that calls into question whether it’s an economically sustainable model anymore unless, like the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, the boss is the world’s richest man.

That’s especially true in smaller communities.

“They’re getting eaten away at every level,” said Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst at Harvard’s Nieman Lab.

Newspaper circulation in the U.S. has declined every year for three decades, while advertising revenue has nosedived since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. Staffing at newspapers large and small has followed that grim trendline: Pew says the number of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom employees in the industry fell by 45 percent nationwide between 2004 and 2017.

In the mid-1990s, when former Daily Guide publisher Tim Berrier was replaced, the newspaper had a news editor, sports editor, photographer and two reporters on staff. Along with traditional community news, the Daily Guide covered the Army’s decision to move its chemical warfare training facility to Fort Leonard Wood in the 1990s, and a flood that swept a mother and son to their deaths in 2013.

As recently as 2010, the Daily Guide had four full-time news people, along with a page designer and three ad salespeople.

But people left and weren’t replaced. Last spring, the Daily Guide was cut from five to three days a week. In June, the last newsroom staffer, editor Natalie Sanders, quit — she was burned out, she said. She made a bet with the only other full-time employee, ad salesperson Tiffany Baker, over when the newspaper would close. Sanders said three years; Baker said one.

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Arguments heat up as PSEG fights for nuclear subsidy in NJ

Company claims South Jersey plants uneconomic otherwise. Rate Counsel Stefanie Brand accuses it of ‘holding a gun to the regulators’ head’

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
PSEG’s threat to shut down its plants unless it “gets every penny’’ of a proposed $300 million ratepayer subsidy is “effectively holding a gun to the regulators’ head,” according to a brief filed by Rate Counsel director Stefanie Brand. 
In responding to the company’s own filing last month, Brand sharply rebuked the former’s assertion it will close all its nuclear plants in South Jersey if the full subsidy, dubbed a zero-emission certificate (ZEC), is not paid to all three units there. 

“The ZEC statute was not intended to provide a guarantee that these plants will not be retired, only a process for nuclear plant owners to seek subsidies based on a demonstration of economic necessity,’’ Brand said in the brief. The Rate Counsel contends PSEG has failed to make a compelling case on need.
PSEG countered that it has demonstrated in its filings that none of the plants are economically viable and their closure would be catastrophic for New Jersey’s clean-energy goals, according to Ralph LaRossa, president of PSEG Power, the owner of PSEG Nuclear.
“Ratepayer Advocate’s overheated rhetoric aside, her comments largely ignore the very specific matter before the Board of Public Utilities (BPU),’’ LaRossa said in an e-mailed response to Brand’s brief. “Her comments amount to rewrite New Jersey’s new law and redirect focus to the past or future while ignoring the coming three-year period the BPU has been asked to review.’’

Another twist in the tale

The Rate Counsel’s filing is the latest twist in an ongoing proceeding undertaken by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to decide if PSEG’s three plants — Salem I, Salem II, and Hope Creek — qualify for subsidies to be paid by ratepayers. Without the subsidies, PSEG has decided to close the plants, beginning as early as this fall with Hope Creek, according to an earlier company filing.
PSEG contends in its filings that the financial information it has provided to the state proves the plants will not cover future costs and risks, qualifying it for ZECs. That information, however, has been redacted in public filings, in what has been largely an opaque process leading up to a decision on the subsidy, expected to be made next month.
Nevertheless, there has been intense behind-the-scenes lobbying pro and con the proposed subsidies. BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso, apparently responding to the rampant speculation over the issue, declared at the agency’s monthly meeting last month, “We’re not here to destroy any industry.’’ He declined to say who he thought was making that accusation.

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Two panels to address NJ’s energy future. Are you going?

[Editor’s Note: Interested in or concerned about New Jersey’s energy future? Our friends at NJ Spotlight are presenting what promises to be an informative event on Friday morning. Sign up here] 

An NJ Spotlight Roundtable: A Map To New Jersey’s Clean Energy Future 

Friday, March 15, 2019, from 8 am-11:30 am 

By 2050, New Jersey aims to be a carbon-free economy. However, it has yet to chart a road map for achieving that goal. What needs to happen to transition us from here – a state that now relies on natural gas for 40 percent of its electricity and 75 percent of its home heating – to there? How do we electrify our transportation system, modernize an aging power grid, and seamlessly integrate clean energy? How can we use energy more efficiently?
In the first of a series of energy roundtables in 2019, NJ Spotlight will ask experts about the challenges, pitfalls, and benefits of transitioning to a clean energy future and for their practical suggestions toward attaining the goal.

The keynote address will frame considerations vital to the clean energy road map such as the evolving roles of utilities, markets, customers, and regulators in the state’s migration to a 21st-century electric system and the realization of a 100% clean energy future. Attendees may submit questions for consideration in advance of the event as part of the registration process.

Keynote:
Scott A. Weiner, Esq., Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Cappelli LLC; former Deputy, Markets and Innovation, NY State Department of Public Service; former President, NJ Board of Public Utilities; former Commissioner, NJ Department of Environmental Protection & Energy

Panel A: Roles of Utilities and Markets
Curtis Fisher, Northeast Regional Executive Director, Conservation Programs, National Wildlife Federation
Nicole Sitaranam, Senior Manager, Public Policy, Sunrun
Senator Bob Smith, Chair, Environment and Energy Committee, New Jersey State Senate
Geraldine Smith, Deputy General Counsel and Managing Director, Environment, PSEG

Panel B: Roles of Priorities and Technologies
Larry Barth, Director, Corporate Strategy, New Jersey Resources Clean Energy Ventures
Sara Bluhm, Director, Division of Clean Energy, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities
Frank A. Felder, Ph.D, Director, Rutgers Energy Institute; Director, Center for Energy, Economic & Environmental Policy, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University
Amy Goldsmith, New Jersey Director, Clean Water Action; Board Member, NJ Work Environment Council; Appointee, NJDEP Clean Water Council

Moderator:
Tom Johnson, Energy Reporter, NJ Spotlight 

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What if a border wall could pay for itself?


Building an energy corridor along the border instead of just
a wall would be a ‘giant leap for mankind,’ bringing security and jobs to the region, says a Purdue University-led national consortium of engineers and scientists
Purdue University News:
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Instead of a wall, build a first-of-its-kind energy park that spans the 1,954 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico to bring energy, water, jobs and border security to the region.
That’s the audacious plan put forward by a consortium of 28 prestigious engineers and scientists from across the nation who propose that the two nations work together on an enormous infrastructure project: a complex train of solar energy panels, wind turbines, natural gas pipelines, desalination facilities that together would create an industrial park along the border unlike anything found anywhere else in the world.
The facilities would provide the desired border security, the researchers say, because utility facilities and infrastructure must
be well-protected. The connected energy parks would also be an economic driver, both in the construction of the facilities themselves and in the businesses that would be attracted to the region by cheap electricity and plentiful water resources. Comments from
co-authors of the proposal to build an energy-water-security corridor are available here.
Luciano Castillo, Purdue University’s Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems, and lead of the consortium, says if enacted, the mega infrastructure project would have a historic positive effect for both nations.
“Just like the transcontinental railroad transformed the United States in the 19th century, or the Interstate system transformed the 20th century, this would be a national infrastructure project for the 21st century,” Castillo says. “It would do for the Southwest what
the Tennessee Valley Authority has done for the Southeast over the last several decades.”
Ronald Adrian, Regent’s Professor at Arizona State University
and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering, says this proposal, although a huge undertaking, is worth serious study.
“At first blush, the idea seems too big, too aggressive, but consider the Roman aqueducts or the transcontinental railroads — enormous undertakings that gave enormous benefits. The cost of providing basic, essential infrastructure to the borderlands is tiny compared to the opportunities it creates,” he says. “I view this project as a means of creating wealth by turning unused land of little value along the border into valuable land that has power,
water access and ultimately agriculture, industry, jobs, workers
and communities. With only a wall, you still have unused land of little value.”
Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Regent’s Professor at Arizona State University, says a cooperative effort between the United States a
nd Mexico to address the issues of the border region would reinforce the cultural ties that have existed for hundreds of years.
“The USA-Mexico border is home to families with common bonds, large Spanglish-proficient communities, talented creative large pools of young people, intersecting cultural ties and more. These communities have faced day and night similar ecological, health, education, energy, water and security challenges,” Castillo-Chavez says. “They know that solutions must address these challenges across both nations. There are no effective single-territory solutions.”
The plan was first reported by Scientific American; the full proposal is available online.
Contributing to border security
The first question often raised about the proposal is about border security and, Castillo says, the energy parks would provide ample security.
“All utility plants, pipelines and other energy production facilities have security — as any infrastructure will have under any conditions,” he says. “In addition to physical security features,
such as multiple levels of fencing, these pipelines and facilities would also have electronic sensors and drone surveillance. This would allow areas for wildlife to continue to migrate while alerting officials to anyone crossing the border illegally.”
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Adrian agrees: “The measures being undertaken to control the U.S.-Mexican border with a barrier ( the ‘wall’) are entirely compatible with a long bank of solar panels backed by a super pipeline — same land, similar construction issues, and the fact
that each of these systems is a barrier to some degree.”
The idea of combining the border security wall or fence with solar energy panels isn’t original — in fact, President Trump himself has floated the idea as one of many possibilities.
“This is a different kind of initiative that will solve many existing challenges while bringing people together,” Castillo says. “It will bring energy, water and education to create more opportunities
for the USA and Mexico on both sides.”
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Holy mackerel…wait, make that Atlantic Sturgeon

A pair of Atlantic sturgeon. (Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)


Andrew Revkin reports in National GeographicCOLD SPRING, NEW YORK One day last June, two researchers were towing a special sonar system up and down the Hudson River near Hyde Park, New York, the site of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home, when they saw something pleasantly shocking.They were helping state biologists assess whether the spawning or foraging of a fabled and endangered bottom-feeding denizen, the Atlantic sturgeon(Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus), was being disrupted when commercial vessels dropped anchor in a spot designated as a waiting area to manage ship traffic.The anchorage, established in 1999, happened to be located in a stretch of the Hudson that is one of the most important spawning grounds in its range along the coast from Florida through Canada’s maritime provinces. More anchorages were planned elsewhere in the Hudson.Not receiving our free updates? Unlike a simple depth sounder, this “side-scan” sonar sweeps high-frequency beams of sound out at angles, producing a detailed three-dimensional portrait of the river bed and any decent-size fish—and often precise enough to reveal the sturgeon’s distinctive profile, as low-slung as a Formula One car.John A. Madsen, the University of Delaware geologist running the sonar, recalled the screen was showing the expected mix of bottom features—areas where currents had sculpted “sand waves,” scrapes and furrows in the anchorage.River giantThe sonar revealed a sturgeon roughly twice as long as anything seen that day—confidently estimated at just over 14 feet from nose to tail tip. That’s a size that, even decades ago, even a century ago, was considered a rarity. But now, it was unimaginable given what this species had endured.“When I first saw it, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Madsen recalled. But there was no mistaking the image. He and his colleague, Dewayne A. Fox of Delaware State University, have extensively used this sonar system in sturgeon habitat elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast and in the Republic of Georgia, home to half a dozen species of sturgeon, all deeply endangered, including Huso huso, which can reach lengths of 18 feet and is the source of Beluga caviar.Amanda Higgs, a state biologist who’s been tagging and netting Hudson sturgeon for more than a decade, was out on the water working nearby that day. As news of the sighting spread, she had a reaction echoing a famed scene in the movie Jaws.“Our boat is way too small to deal with a fish like that,” she said in an email.Biologists estimate a sturgeon that length could easily weigh 800 pounds.One exciting aspect of knowing the Hudson has female sturgeon that large is that bigger females produce vastly more eggs than smaller ones—up to 8 million at the high end. “Size matters,” said Jane Lubchenco, a marine ecologist at Oregon State and a former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The debate over adding anchorages along the Hudson is on hold for now after fierce opposition from environmental groups and scientists, including a cautionary 2016 letter to the Coast Guard from Madsen and Fox, who’ve been doing surveys around Hyde Park for several years.But any harm from dragging anchors would be just one of a host of far broader assaults on this species, and sturgeon worldwide, over the last century.

“The most threatened group of animals”

In 2010, the International Union for Conservation of Nature was blunt in its warning: “Eighty five percent of sturgeon, one of the oldest families of fishes in existence, valued around the world for their precious roe, are at risk of extinction, making them the most threatened group of animals on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.”

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