This past Memorial Day Weekend officially kicked off the start of summer 2023, and with a new season comes new environmental news! Open (Farmers Market) Season! The time has finally come when all 20 farmers markets in Fairfax County are open for business! The County’s Park Authority operates half of those, the remaining 10 are …

Tests by Consumer Reports (CR) revealed dangerous levels of lead in the storage compartment on the viral “sip and stash” water bottles. Lead is “toxic to both kids and adults; exposure to it can cause reproductive harm, increase cancer risk, and hurt brain and nervous system development. If pregnant people come into contact with lead, …

Most of us are very familiar with the prefix “bio.” It often indicates a reference to living plants or creatures, and it connotes images of the earth, its many life forms, and perhaps a few scenes from Planet Earth or National Geographic images. But the prefix bio as it’s used in the marketing of new …

As the country celebrated another America Recycles Day this past week, we looked back at some of the new reports, major announcements, and state of recycling in the U.S. today.  America (Doesn’t Really) Recycles Day A Greenpeace report out at the end of last month exposed some ugly truths about plastic recycling in the U.S. …

A new report reveals how Virginia voters feel about plastic pollution and potential policies to address it. The report, a collaboration by Clean Virginia Waterways of Longwood University and the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program with OpinionWorks, describes findings from a statewide survey of Virginia voters conducted in March, 2022. The opinion research aimed to …

Deep down in the ocean, it’s not only microplastics piling up (~63% of seafloor dirt is plastic). BIG pieces of plastic, along with other trash, used to stay where it fell. It now can move due to human activities and pile up in odd, and important, places. A study out of the University of Barcelona …

Loudoun County may be up next for a plastic bag fee in Virginia (see here and here)! The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will vote in January whether to adopt the bag ordinance, which would produce a potential revenue of $275,000 to $340,000 in 2023 for things like environmental cleanup, education programs to reduce environmental …

It’s business as usual for streams, like us, to be facing a lot of stress; from new developments, changes in climate, introduction of chemicals, extraction for drinking water/ irrigation, the list of stressors seems endless and dire. Good news can be found at a local, Fairfax County stream, Old Courthouse Spring Branch (Spring Branch) in …

If you still don’t have a Halloween costume ready for this weekend, think green when it comes to your last minute getup. This article dives into 1) how Americans will spend $3.32 billion on costumes this year, 2) how many of these costumes are “disposable” and made primarily of plastic, and 3) what kinds of …