Here’s a thought to ponder: wouldn’t it be cool to replace plastic packaging with CHEESE?! Because that’s a thing we read about and are sharing in our Environmental News Roundup this week:

Board defers USD hearing to October – Annandale Today, June 10, 2025

Fairfax County’s Solid Waste Management Program has brought forth a proposal to unify the sanitation (trash and recycling collection) districts, meaning that the County would contract directly with haulers and create a unified system for all residents. This would mean fewer trucks servicing the same neighborhoods and would offer more standardized and consistent services. The Board of Supervisors was slated to hold a public hearing and vote on the concept (which would not become operational until 2030) on June 24th, but has postponed that meeting until October 14th to allow for additional public comment and outreach. 

Packaging innovations: Nestlé ‘self-packing’ cheese will have you saying ‘no whey!’ – Packaging Dive, May 21, 2025

Although you won’t find it yet in U.S. stores, product developers have invented a new kind of cheese packaging made from byproducts of the cheesemaking process. It is a bioplastic produced using whey that eliminates the need for virgin fossil fuels, according to this article. The prototype is currently being tested on products sold in Panama. Designers assert that the whey-based packaging will biodegrade within 300 days.

A salt crisis is looming for U.S. rivers – The Washington Post, June 4, 2025

Freshwater rivers are becoming saltier across the US, including in the DC metropolitan area. The December salt concentrations in the Potomac have risen by 41% percent over the past three decades. Research has found that salt used to defrost roads in the winter is a large contributor to the increased salinity in northern inland cities. In large freshwater systems, such as the Potomac River, the salinity is increasing from not only the surrounding area’s road salt, but also salt from miles away, via tributaries. In more coastal areas, there is even more salt seeping into the freshwater, as the ocean is pushing the salt front – the boundary between freshwater and saltwater – further inland. Drought and rising sea levels exacerbate this effect. While the salinity levels of our tap water are not yet enough to require more intensive removal, the increased salt is making its way into our local water sources, and can be difficult to remove.

Hawaii Governor Signs Bill Authorizing Packaging EPR Study – Packaging Strategies, June 6, 2025

In Hawaii–a state that often leads the country on waste management issues due to its limited land area available for landfills–Governer Josh Green signed a bill last week calling for a statewide recycling needs assessment study to be completed by the end of 2027. Specifically, the assessment is intended to “‘determine what will be needed to reduce waste generation, increase reuse, improve collection services, and expand local processing of materials through an extended producer responsibility program for packaging materials and paper products.’” Currently, only seven states have passed this kind of “If you make it, you take it” law, although 12 have introduced EPR packaging legislation.