With so much going on around the world we wanted to give you a midweek news roundup! (Plus we would like not all our posts to get lost at Facebook!) 

Virginia has joined Maryland, Delaware, and DC in suing the EPA, stating that the EPA has not held other Chesapeake Watershed states accountable for their pollution. New York and Pennsylvania have not developed or implemented plans that will achieve the necessary pollutant reductions. A healthy Chesapeake Bay Watershed has an economic value of $129.7 billion to the region. Read the full article here.

The fossil fuel industry, led by the American Chemistry Council, has asked the federal government to pressure Kenya to reduce the country’s restrictions on plastic waste. In 2017 Kenya instituted the world’s strictest ban on the use, manufacturing and importing of plastic bags. The American Chemistry Council stated, “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa”. This will enable the proliferation of plastic production and continue to harm the most vulnerable communities in the US and globally. The American Chemistry Council has been a regular fixture in Virginia, they are one of the leading opponents fighting to stop Virginia’s ban on expanded polystyrene food and beverage service containers. Read the full article here.

(AP Photo, Ben Curtis, File)

Plastic packaging, specifically candy wrappers and chip bags, are the most commonly found beach trash. During the 34 years volunteers and researchers have catalogued waste found during beach clean ups, cigarette butts have always been the most common beach trash found, until 2019. Cigarette butts not being at the top of the list isn’t because of a drastic decrease in smoking around the globe, wrappers are the most common beach trash found because the amount of plastic packaging that is produced increases every year. In our local Fairfax County stream monitoring, plastic packaging has been the most common stream based trash we have found for the last three and a half years. Read the full story about plastic beach trash here.  

The summer growing season is coming to an end, but you can extend your growing season by planting cool weather crops! Some great fall crops are lettuces, kale, beets, turnips, spinach, and mustard greens. Your fall garden will require a little extra work- till the soil as the old plants are pulled out to aerate the soil, and you might have to add some soil amendments to give your soil the correct texture and composition. Read all the great tips here! 

(Photo attributed to referenced article)

Every month the world is using 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves and there has been a 300% increase in single use plastic consumption. The increase in single use plastic consumption is the fossil fuel industry’s plan to maintain demand for their polluting products. By 2030 plastic will be the number one driver of oil demand. There is hope to build back sustainably. Single use plastics do not have to be the norm, a circular economy is possible. Read the entire story here.

(Photo attributed to referenced article)