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Abandoned Wells, Methane-Emission Loopholes and Underground Toxic Waste Dumps All Raise Concerns

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Friday, May 17, 2024

Welcome to “Feet to the Fire: Big Oil and the Climate Crisis,” a biweekly newsletter in which we share our latest reporting on how the fossil fuel industry drives climate change and influences climate policy in five of the nation’s most important oil and gas-producing states. In addition, we shine a spotlight on the financing of the fossil fuel industry, holding banks and other financial institutions accountable for their role and providing you with updates on their activities. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter on Substack. Thousands of Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells in Texas Are Polluting the Environment There are more than 8,400 orphan oil and gas wells in Texas — but that barely scratches the surface since that count doesn’t include an unknown number of abandoned wells that are more than a century old and cannot be found in state records. Many of them are leaking produced water, hydrocarbons and gas to the surface and threatening groundwater, and that represents an existential threat to Schuyler Wight, a West Texas rancher who told Capital & Main’s Elliott Woods that he has about 250 aging and derelict wells on his land, and he’s frustrated by the state’s lack of attention to the problem. “How Do You Approve an Underground Toxic Waste Dump Without Telling Nobody?” It was a shock to Mario Atencio when he discovered that an oil and gas company was planning to convert a water well into a disposal site for toxic wastewater less than a mile from his family home in New Mexico. He asks, “How do you approve an underground toxic waste dump without telling nobody?” Atencio, who has long been fighting oil and gas development on ancestral Native lands, told Capital & Main’s Jerry Redfern that he “kind of freaked out” when he learned of the planned conversion, which will likely get nixed in a pending decision by the New Mexico State Land Commissioner. California’s Plan for a Green Hydrogen Future Carries Risks, Say Critics California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to ramp up the use of renewable hydrogen is raising concerns among environmentalists, who cite the risk of increased emissions and pollution. The state was approved by the U.S. Department of Energy for a $1.2 billion hydrogen hub investment, and critics worry that hydrogen supporters are “pushing California into a risky regulatory framework, motivated by financial incentives” in President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, reports Capital & Main’s Aaron Cantú. Loophole in New Mexico Law May Allow Methane Releases Despite the passage of a 2021 law that bans routine venting and flaring of natural gas, exceptions for pipeline operators paved the way for the release of millions of cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas in January and February — their highest levels since the so-called Methane Rule was approved. The amount vented by pipeline company Targa Northern Delaware was equivalent to the carbon footprint of nearly 26,000 gasoline-powered cars driven for an entire year, reports Jerry Redfern. New Report Names the World’s Top Banks Financing Fossil Fuels JPMorgan is the globe’s top fossil fuel financier, committing $40.8 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2023, per the 15th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, which provides a window into lending and underwriting to more than 4,200 oil and gas and coal companies. Altogether, the world’s 60 largest private banks have provided nearly $7 trillion in financing to fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. Almost half of that amount — $3.3 trillion — went into expanding fossil fuel production. The top bank funding such expansion activities is Citigroup, which has provided $204 billion since 2016. The annual report is released by seven climate groups, including Oil Change International, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club and Urgewald. Among other highlights of the report: Some banks have rolled back policies that were intended to reduce their financing of fossil fuel production. For example, Bank of America, ranked third on the 2023 list of “worst fossil fuel funders,” has dropped its exclusions on Arctic drilling, thermal coal and coal-fired power plants, per the report. Financing for coal mining in 2023 increased slightly over 2022, with most of the financing provided by banks located in China. Bank of America was one of several banks that made commitments of $2.54 billion in total to 48 companies around the world that are active in metallurgical coal mining. Financing for liquefied natural gas increased to $120.9 billion in 2023, led by banks such as RBC, JPMorgan Chase and Mizuho Financial. Report: Barclays Is Greenwashing Billions of Dollars in “Sustainable Finance” Amid increased scrutiny of sustainable and transition finance, with concerns that funds intended for companies that agree to meet climate-related targets are actually being used to finance polluting activities, a new investigative exposé by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that Barclays helped raise $41 billion in sustainability-linked finance for fossil fuel companies last year. The revelation prompted one of the bank’s investors, Andrew Harper of investment manager Epworth, to call the bank “totally dishonest,” adding: “We’re concerned because the bank is making such a substantial claim and the public thinks the climate emergency is being worked towards being solved. Meanwhile, the problem is getting worse and worse.” Barclays told the BIJ that “Sustainability linked loans and bonds are an important sustainable finance tool, incentivizing borrowers, particularly in hard to abate sectors, to achieve sustainability objectives over time.” EU’s Largest Bank Stops Underwriting Bonds for Oil and Gas Producers BNP Paribas SA, the biggest bank in the European Union, said that it has stopped underwriting bonds for oil and gas producers, one of the biggest steps taken to reduce fossil fuel financing by financial institutions. The change comes amid stricter ESG regulations in Europe and a lawsuit against the bank’s financing activities that was brought by climate activists last year. BNP has increased its use of sustainable finance and is currently the biggest underwriter of green bonds in the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. BNP’s decision “sets them apart from other international banks,” Lucie Pinson, director of Reclaim Finance, a Paris-based climate nonprofit, told Bloomberg. Australia’s Top Banks Now All Rule Out Project Financing for New Oil and Gas Fields One of Australia’s biggest lenders, ANZ, announced it would no longer provide direct financing to new or expanded oil and gas fields as well as new LNG export plants. With the announcement, the continent’s four biggest banks — ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and Westpac — have closed the door on project financing for new oil and gas fields. Amid pressure from shareholders and climate activists, ANZ won’t be financing a controversial LNG project in Papua New Guinea that is being developed by TotalEnergies, Santos and ExxonMobil. As part of its broader climate strategy, ANZ is requiring its 100 biggest customers to make progress on their transition plans. U.S. Oil and Gas Producers Seeing “a Lot More Interest From the Bank Community”  Though foreign banks have pulled back from the oil and gas industry in the face of sustainability concerns, other lenders are jumping back in, Michael Bodino, managing director of investment banking at Texas Capital Bank, told Hart Energy: “We’re seeing a lot more interest from the bank community broadly to get new credits in their portfolios.” In addition, pension and insurance companies in pursuit of a return on their investment are looking to the upstream sector (referring to the exploration and extraction segment of the industry). In addition, the leveraged loan market, which goes principally to borrowers with high levels of debt, has been active in the industry, said Bodino. Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

Here are the world’s top banks financing fossil fuels — is yours on the list? The post Abandoned Wells, Methane-Emission Loopholes and Underground Toxic Waste Dumps All Raise Concerns appeared first on .

Welcome to “Feet to the Fire: Big Oil and the Climate Crisis,” a biweekly newsletter in which we share our latest reporting on how the fossil fuel industry drives climate change and influences climate policy in five of the nation’s most important oil and gas-producing states. In addition, we shine a spotlight on the financing of the fossil fuel industry, holding banks and other financial institutions accountable for their role and providing you with updates on their activities.

Click here to subscribe to the newsletter on Substack.

Thousands of Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells in Texas Are Polluting the Environment

There are more than 8,400 orphan oil and gas wells in Texas — but that barely scratches the surface since that count doesn’t include an unknown number of abandoned wells that are more than a century old and cannot be found in state records. Many of them are leaking produced water, hydrocarbons and gas to the surface and threatening groundwater, and that represents an existential threat to Schuyler Wight, a West Texas rancher who told Capital & Main’s Elliott Woods that he has about 250 aging and derelict wells on his land, and he’s frustrated by the state’s lack of attention to the problem.

“How Do You Approve an Underground Toxic Waste Dump Without Telling Nobody?”

It was a shock to Mario Atencio when he discovered that an oil and gas company was planning to convert a water well into a disposal site for toxic wastewater less than a mile from his family home in New Mexico. He asks, “How do you approve an underground toxic waste dump without telling nobody?” Atencio, who has long been fighting oil and gas development on ancestral Native lands, told Capital & Main’s Jerry Redfern that he “kind of freaked out” when he learned of the planned conversion, which will likely get nixed in a pending decision by the New Mexico State Land Commissioner.

California’s Plan for a Green Hydrogen Future Carries Risks, Say Critics

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to ramp up the use of renewable hydrogen is raising concerns among environmentalists, who cite the risk of increased emissions and pollution. The state was approved by the U.S. Department of Energy for a $1.2 billion hydrogen hub investment, and critics worry that hydrogen supporters are “pushing California into a risky regulatory framework, motivated by financial incentives” in President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, reports Capital & Main’s Aaron Cantú.

Loophole in New Mexico Law May Allow Methane Releases

Despite the passage of a 2021 law that bans routine venting and flaring of natural gas, exceptions for pipeline operators paved the way for the release of millions of cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas in January and February — their highest levels since the so-called Methane Rule was approved. The amount vented by pipeline company Targa Northern Delaware was equivalent to the carbon footprint of nearly 26,000 gasoline-powered cars driven for an entire year, reports Jerry Redfern.

New Report Names the World’s Top Banks Financing Fossil Fuels

JPMorgan is the globe’s top fossil fuel financier, committing $40.8 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2023, per the 15th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, which provides a window into lending and underwriting to more than 4,200 oil and gas and coal companies. Altogether, the world’s 60 largest private banks have provided nearly $7 trillion in financing to fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. Almost half of that amount — $3.3 trillion — went into expanding fossil fuel production. The top bank funding such expansion activities is Citigroup, which has provided $204 billion since 2016. The annual report is released by seven climate groups, including Oil Change International, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club and Urgewald. Among other highlights of the report:

  • Some banks have rolled back policies that were intended to reduce their financing of fossil fuel production. For example, Bank of America, ranked third on the 2023 list of “worst fossil fuel funders,” has dropped its exclusions on Arctic drilling, thermal coal and coal-fired power plants, per the report.
  • Financing for coal mining in 2023 increased slightly over 2022, with most of the financing provided by banks located in China.
  • Bank of America was one of several banks that made commitments of $2.54 billion in total to 48 companies around the world that are active in metallurgical coal mining.
  • Financing for liquefied natural gas increased to $120.9 billion in 2023, led by banks such as RBC, JPMorgan Chase and Mizuho Financial.

Report: Barclays Is Greenwashing Billions of Dollars in “Sustainable Finance”

Amid increased scrutiny of sustainable and transition finance, with concerns that funds intended for companies that agree to meet climate-related targets are actually being used to finance polluting activities, a new investigative exposé by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that Barclays helped raise $41 billion in sustainability-linked finance for fossil fuel companies last year. The revelation prompted one of the bank’s investors, Andrew Harper of investment manager Epworth, to call the bank “totally dishonest,” adding: “We’re concerned because the bank is making such a substantial claim and the public thinks the climate emergency is being worked towards being solved. Meanwhile, the problem is getting worse and worse.” Barclays told the BIJ that “Sustainability linked loans and bonds are an important sustainable finance tool, incentivizing borrowers, particularly in hard to abate sectors, to achieve sustainability objectives over time.”

EU’s Largest Bank Stops Underwriting Bonds for Oil and Gas Producers

BNP Paribas SA, the biggest bank in the European Union, said that it has stopped underwriting bonds for oil and gas producers, one of the biggest steps taken to reduce fossil fuel financing by financial institutions. The change comes amid stricter ESG regulations in Europe and a lawsuit against the bank’s financing activities that was brought by climate activists last year. BNP has increased its use of sustainable finance and is currently the biggest underwriter of green bonds in the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. BNP’s decision “sets them apart from other international banks,” Lucie Pinson, director of Reclaim Finance, a Paris-based climate nonprofit, told Bloomberg.

Australia’s Top Banks Now All Rule Out Project Financing for New Oil and Gas Fields

One of Australia’s biggest lenders, ANZ, announced it would no longer provide direct financing to new or expanded oil and gas fields as well as new LNG export plants. With the announcement, the continent’s four biggest banks — ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and Westpac — have closed the door on project financing for new oil and gas fields. Amid pressure from shareholders and climate activists, ANZ won’t be financing a controversial LNG project in Papua New Guinea that is being developed by TotalEnergies, Santos and ExxonMobil. As part of its broader climate strategy, ANZ is requiring its 100 biggest customers to make progress on their transition plans.

U.S. Oil and Gas Producers Seeing “a Lot More Interest From the Bank Community” 

Though foreign banks have pulled back from the oil and gas industry in the face of sustainability concerns, other lenders are jumping back in, Michael Bodino, managing director of investment banking at Texas Capital Bank, told Hart Energy: “We’re seeing a lot more interest from the bank community broadly to get new credits in their portfolios.” In addition, pension and insurance companies in pursuit of a return on their investment are looking to the upstream sector (referring to the exploration and extraction segment of the industry). In addition, the leveraged loan market, which goes principally to borrowers with high levels of debt, has been active in the industry, said Bodino.

Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

Read the full story here.
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Removal of waste from site of 1984 Bhopal disaster dismissed as ‘farce’

Indian government accused of PR stunt after moving 337 tonnes of toxic waste that had been held in containersForty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site.However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area. Continue reading...

Forty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site.However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area.There have also been protests over fears that the incineration of the waste will only lead to further contamination and toxic exposure in other areas.At about midnight on 2 December 1984, the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal exploded, releasing 40 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate and other lethal gases into the air.More than 3,000 people were killed in the immediate aftermath and at least 25,000 are estimated to have died overall.Local groups have claimed the true number is probably even higher due to the long-term effects of the poisonous gas, which include high rates of cancers, kidney and lung diseases. High numbers of babies have been stillborn or born with severe disabilities to gas-affected mothers in recent years.Despite the scale of the industrial disaster, a proper operation to remove all the toxic waste from Bhopal has never been carried out, either by the US company Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemicals, which was the majority owner of the factory at the time, or by the Indian government, which took back control of the land where the factory stood.Rights groups have accused the US corporations and the Indian government of attempting to play down the lasting impact of Bhopal’s untouched chemical debris.Official surveys submitted to the courts have shown that the contamination, which includes highly poisonous heavy metals and UN-banned organic pollutants, has spread to at least 42 areas in Bhopal. Testing near the site revealed levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the groundwater were 50 times higher than what is accepted as safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.Lethal levels of toxic waste have also been found in factory pits and festering open ponds where the waste was being dumped by the Union Carbide factory prior to the explosion.For years, campaigners have been fighting for Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals to be held liable for the cost of the cleanup and safe removal of the waste, a process which is expected to cost upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars, but the US corporation has always denied liability, citing a 1989 settlement with the Indian government.In what was initially taken as progress, last month the Madhya Pradesh high court ordered authorities to finally take responsibility for the chemical waste, criticising the inertia of the past four decades and asking whether the government was “waiting for another tragedy”.However, the government has now removed 337 tonnes of overground waste that had already been put into containers and moved to a warehouse in 2005, which campaigners claim no longer posed any significant threat and was not contributing to the groundwater contamination.Rachna Dhingra, a coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, called the move a “farce and greenwashing publicity stunt to remove a tiny fraction of the least harmful waste” and questioned why Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals were not being held accountable.She said: “There’s still 1.1m tonnes of poisonous waste leaching into the ground every day that they refuse to deal with. We can see for ourselves the birth defects and chronic health conditions. All this does is take the heat off the government and lets the US corporations off the hook. It does nothing to help the people in Bhopal who for decades have been seen as expendable.”Dhingra was also highly critical of the government’s decision to take the removed waste to be incinerated at a plant 150 miles away in Pithampur that has previously failed tests on conducting such operations safely and exposed local people to high levels of toxins.The incineration, which is likely to take about six months, will create 900 tonnes of toxic residue, which will then be buried in landfills. The move has provoked large protests by people in Pithampur who are fearful of further toxic exposure and leakages into their groundwater from the waste.Swatantra Kumar Singh, the director of the state government’s Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department, denied there was any contamination risk to the local ecosystem and said the waste would be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner.Many local people and human right groups consider the Bhopal disaster to be a continuing miscarriage of justice. The 1989 settlement led to most victims being given 25,000 rupees (about $500 at the time), while most of those who developed related conditions or died years later got nothing at all.None of the nine Indian officials who were convicted in 2010 over their roles in the disaster served any time in prison, and Dow Chemicals has maintained in the courts that it is not criminally liable for the actions of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary before it bought the parent company.Campaigners have accused the US government of blocking attempts to extradite Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals officials to face justice in India over failures that led to the explosion.

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Troubled Chiquita Canyon Landfill will cease accepting trash in 2025

Texas-based Waste Connections Inc. has notified Los Angeles County that New Year's Eve would be Chiquita Canyon's final day for accepting solid waste.

Unable to extinguish a smoldering chemical reaction that sent noxious odors into area neighborhoods and triggered legal action by Los Angeles County, the owners of Chiquita Canyon Landfill announced Tuesday that they would shutter the 52-year-old municipal waste site on New Year’s Day.In a letter to California environmental regulators and public officials, a representative from Texas-based Waste Connections Inc. said that Dec. 31 was the final day it would accept solid waste at the 639-acre facility in the Santa Clarita Valley.“Chiquita had wished to maintain its crucial role in the community’s solid waste management system, but has made the difficult decision to close its active waste disposal operations,” wrote Steve Cassulo, the landfill’s manager. “Although Chiquita has available (capacity), due to the regulatory environment, maintaining ongoing operations at Chiquita is no longer economically viable.”For nearly two years, Chiquita Canyon had been struggling to handle the fallout from a rare chemical reaction that caused broiling temperatures to break out deep underground in a closed portion of the landfill. The extreme heat roasted decades-old garbage and damaged the landfill’s gas control systems, causing foul-smelling gases to drift into the nearby Val Verde and Castaic.The smoldering conditions also caused pressure to build, resulting in geysers of hazardous liquid waste bursting onto the surface and white smoke seeping out of long fissures. In recent months, Chiquita Canyon has faced increasing pressure from regulators, who placed restrictions on where waste could be placed within the landfill. Chiquita Canyon, Los Angeles County’s second-largest active landfill, typically accepted roughly 2 million tons of solid waste annually. That accounted for about one-third of all garbage disposed of in L.A. County. In a region that has long struggled with waste reduction efforts and waning disposal capacity, public officials are now examining how the closure will affect the flow of waste in Southern California. L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said public officials had anticipated Chiquita Canyon’s closure. The landfill had been accepting significantly less waste recently. L.A. County officials oversaw a diversion of this waste to Simi Valley and Antelope Valley landfills, Barger said. So far, there has not been an increase in tonnage sent to Sylmar’s Sunshine Canyon, which accepts the most waste annually. Barger said she would introduce a motion at the next Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 7, directing Public Works to conduct an assessment of Chiquita Canyon’s closure, including the environmental and financial implications associated with plans to send waste elsewhere. “I’m committed to ensuring that this transition doesn’t lead to any form of price gouging or unfair practices in waste management services,” Barger said. “Protections must be in place to prevent increased financial burdens on our residents and businesses. I want to emphasize that my top priority, though, continues to be bringing relief to the community that continues being afflicted by the landfill’s noxious odors.”L.A. County Public Works had previously expressed concerns about closing Chiquita Canyon. A decision to close Chiquita Canyon was not expected to resolve the chemical reaction, which was occurring in the long-dormant section of the landfill and could persist for years. The agency noted also that the closure could result in more pollution and higher fees due to transporting garbage farther.“As the agency responsible for regional waste planning in Los Angeles County, we will ensure there are no disruptions to trash collection services in our unincorporated communities and will work closely with the City of Santa Clarita to help prevent any disruptions to their services as well,” said Mark Pestrella, director of L.A. County Public Works. “The health and safety of our residents remains our top priority.”

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My sewing group makes reusable produce bags - cutting back on plastic and textile waste

Read more from My DIY climate hack, a series on everyday people’s creative solutions to the climate crisisSingle-use plastic bags are not only wasteful, they cause serious damage to the environment and our health. Anne-Marie Bonneau, 56, is on a mission to put more reusable produce bags into the world. With the help of her sewing bee group, who make them from upcycled fabric, they’ve given more than 4,000 bags away.As more cities and states implement plastic bag bans, Bonneau, who is known online as the Zero-Waste Chef, is helping people in California’s Silicon Valley make the move away from single-use plastic bags and spreading joy in the process. Continue reading...

Single-use plastic bags are not only wasteful, they cause serious damage to the environment and our health. Anne-Marie Bonneau, 56, is on a mission to put more reusable produce bags into the world. With the help of her sewing bee group, who make them from upcycled fabric, they’ve given more than 4,000 bags away.As more cities and states implement plastic bag bans, Bonneau, who is known online as the Zero-Waste Chef, is helping people in California’s Silicon Valley make the move away from single-use plastic bags and spreading joy in the process.My interest in environmental causes began when I was a kid growing up in Eastern Ontario, Canada. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I helped my dad, who was freaked out about the oil crisis, build a solar heater for our pool. It was so simple and worked so well and saved us around $1,000 each summer. Some of our neighbors thought we were nuts and others thought my dad was brilliant. That made a big impression on me. I also remember going to Florida with my parents when I was about nine where we toured solar-powered homes.In 2011, my older daughter and I decided to break up with plastic. One of the first things we did was to make our own really simple reusable produce bags and we’ve been using them ever since. In 2018, I organized a produce bag sewing bee to get more bags out into the world. Since then, my friends and I have met every month or two to sew the bags out of donated fabric and we give them out at a local farmers’ market in Sunnyvale, California. Covid slowed down sewing and distributing, but we’re back up to speed now.A member of the sewing club cuts recycled fabric into rectangles, which are then sewn together to construct reusable bags. Photograph: Jenna Garrett/The GuardianBecause we use unwanted fabric, we’re merely upcycling existing fabric, not buying virgin fabric to make these bags. The fabric was on its way to the landfill or thrift shop, which may simply be one stop away from the landfill. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans tossed 1.5m tons of towels, sheets and pillowcases in 2018, with only a 15.8% recycling rate.I ask people for natural fibers because synthetics shed microplastics in the wash. Occasionally we’ll get a nice linen sheet. My last big batch of fabric came from my Buy Nothing group. I couldn’t pick up all the fabric people offered. Sometimes my friends and I will have a swap, and at the last sewing bee, one of them brought five big bins of stuff she had cleaned out of her mother’s house. We each took what we could use.Everyone needs a job at our sewing bee so like a little factory we figured out it’s best to have a bunch of bags cut ahead of time before we meet. Once they’re cut, they just take three minutes to make. We have a couple of people sewing and there’s always somebody with a seam ripper to rip apart old pillowcases or fitted sheets. There’s quality control to make sure the bags don’t have holes. And one or two people cut out additional bags.Members of the sewing club rip seams out of recycled fabric, then cut it into rectangles for sewing. Photograph: Jenna Garrett/The GuardianI’m usually busy plying people with tea and treats and threading the machines. I get the music on, usually 1980s or 1990s alternative, and we sew, socialize and snack. We usually have six to eight people and can crank out 100 to 200 bags in an afternoon. Even if no one wanted these bags (but they do!), the sewing bee is time well spent. It’s a social thing and we get together and catch up on what everyone’s doing.When we give out the bags for free, people are so excited. You’d think we were giving away winning lottery tickets. People mob our table at the farmers’ market. Some look at us suspiciously and ask: “What’s the catch?” I tell them: “The catch is you have to use it.” People are really generous and they’ve donated money for thread and equipment, like a secondhand serger machine to speed up the line.Bonneau demonstrates how to sew a reusable bag. Photograph: Jenna Garrett/The GuardianWe’ve given away over 4,000 bags and I think we’ve spent about $8 of our own money. I’ve sewn the bags in person twice now at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco for Zero Waste Month. The giveaways start conversations on plastic pollution. At the farmers’ market, people will say things like: “I don’t like all of this plastic, but I don’t know what else to do.” I’ve had people say they’re going to make their own bags at home. People ask: “Can we steal this idea?” and I say: “Please do!”When we started, my daughter and I would go to the farmers’ market and see a couple of people with reusable produce bags. Now I see more people with them or with containers for delicate produce like berries so they don’t get smushed.California passed a plastic bag ban 10 years ago that led to the use of thicker plastic bags thanks to a loophole. A new law will ban all single-use plastic shopping bags as of 2026, and I’m so glad because those thick plastic bags make me cringe. But even if we bring our own shopping bags, most of us are still stuffing them full of plastic.And the new textile recycling bill California passed is going to take a lot of time to implement, but it’s great – something has to be done. The amount of textile waste is crazy. Putting the onus on the producers will move the needle much more than my little group. We’re not going to run out of upcycled fabric even with that law. My DIY climate hack is a series about everyday people across the US using their own ingenuity to tackle the climate crisis in their neighborhoods, homes and backyards. If you would like to share your story, email us at diyclimate@theguardian.com

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Group Says New Jersey Toxic Waste Dumping Caused $1B in Harm, Calls Settlement Inadequate

A Jersey Shore environmental group says damage from decades of toxic waste dumping at one of America's most notorious pollution sites caused $1 billion worth of damages

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — Years of toxic waste dumping in a Jersey Shore community where childhood cancer rates rose caused at least $1 billion in damage to natural resources, according to an environmental group trying to overturn a settlement between New Jersey and the corporate successor to the firm that did the polluting.Save Barnegat Bay and the township of Toms River are suing to overturn a deal between the state and German chemical company BASF under which the firm will pay $500,000 and carry out nine environmental remediation projects at the site of the former Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corporation plant.That site became one of America's worst toxic waste dumps and led to widespread concern over the prevalence of childhood cancer cases in and around Toms River.Save Barnegat Bay says the settlement is woefully inadequate and does not take into account the scope and full nature of the pollution.The state Department of Environmental Protection defended the deal, saying it is not supposed to be primarily about monetary compensation; restoring damaged areas is a priority, it says.“Ciba-Geigy’s discharges devastated the natural resources of the Toms River and Barnegat Bay,” said Michele Donato, an attorney for the environmental group. “The DEP failed to evaluate decades of evidence, including reports of dead fish, discolored waters, and toxic effluent, that exist in its own archived files.”Those materials include documents dating back to 1958 detailing fish kills and severe oxygen depletion caused by the company's dumping of chemicals into the Toms River and directly onto the ground. It also includes a study by a consultant for Ciba-Geigy showing that a plume of contaminated underground water is three-dimensional and thus could not be adequately assessed by the manner used by New Jersey to calculate damage to natural resources, the group said.An accurate calculation of damages to the site and the surrounding area would exceed $1 billion, Save Barnegat Bay said in court papers."This deal does not come close to compensating our community for what we’ve suffered,” former Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill said in a January public hearing on the settlement.The state declined to comment. In court papers, it defended its handling of the damage assessment.BASF, which is the corporate successor to Ciba-Geigy, declined comment on the litigation but said it is committed to carrying out the settlement it reached with New Jersey in 2022.That calls for it to maintain nine projects for 20 years, including restoring wetlands and grassy areas; creating walking trails, boardwalks and an elevated viewing platform; and building an environmental education center.Starting in the 1950s, Ciba-Geigy — which had been the town’s largest employer — flushed chemicals into the Toms River and the Atlantic Ocean, and buried 47,000 drums of toxic waste in the ground. This created a plume of polluted water that has spread beyond the site into residential neighborhoods and is still being cleaned up.The state health department found that 87 children in Toms River, which was then known as Dover Township, had been diagnosed with cancer from 1979 through 1995. A study determined the rates of childhood cancers and leukemia in girls in Toms River “were significantly elevated when compared to state rates.” No similar rates were found for boys.The study did not explicitly blame the increase on Ciba-Geigy’s dumping, but the company and two others paid $13.2 million to 69 families whose children were diagnosed with cancer. Ciba-Geigy settled criminal charges by paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties on top of the $300 million it and its successors have paid so far to clean up the site.Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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Pollution
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Who’s responsible for waste? A Q&A about the ‘conspiracy’ of overconsumption.

The director of Netflix’s “Buy Now!” says companies should be accountable for the trash they generate.

The last few weeks of the year are always a special time — for shopping.  According to the National Retail Federation, a United States trade group, Americans will spend nearly $1 trillion on clothes, electronics, trinkets, and other goods during the 2024 holiday season, which it defines as November 1 through December 31. That’s about a fifth of the whole year’s retail sales in just two months. Will all that shopping make people happier? Probably not — more than half of Americans say they regret their previous Black Friday purchases, according to one national survey. Polling suggests the high people get from buying stuff is ephemeral; it fades quickly, only fueling the desire to buy more. Perhaps the biggest loser in the cycle of overconsumption, however, is the planet. Obscured by the low prices featured in online flash sales are externalized costs to climate and the environment — in the form of raw material extraction, climate pollution from manufacturing and transport, and the waste that results when products and their packaging are eventually thrown away. By some estimates, the retail industry accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. The internet is littered with blogs and opinion articles claiming consumers are to blamed — that “our need to shop is ruining our planet.” But Flora Bagenal, the producer of a new Netflix documentary called Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy sees an injustice in that framing. Why should everyday people feel guilty, the film asks, when manufacturers and retail companies are doing everything within their power to drive up the pace of consumption? These corporations have designed products to break down quickly, promised that recycling would keep the planet clean, and precision-engineered their advertisements and marketplaces to make the shopping impulse all but irresistible — all while passing the environmental toll onto the public. “I’ve always felt that we don’t hold our companies to account,” Bagenal told Grist. “I wanted to explore that from the perspective of somebody who feels caught up in the system as much as everyone else.” Bagenal lives in the United Kingdom and has produced several other documentaries on topics including the anti-vaccine movement and mental health care. Without explicitly using the term, Buy Now! makes the case for an alternative paradigm called the “polluter pays principle,” which holds that companies — not the public — should be held financially responsible for dealing with the waste they generate. In wonkier terms, the idea manifests as “extended producer responsibility,” or EPR, policies that typically require large companies to pay into a central fund for waste management and prevention. In the U.S., five states have passed EPR laws for packaging. Through interviews with former executives at Adidas, Amazon, and Apple, Buy Now! argues that consumer goods companies have knowingly abdicated their responsibility to the public good. Grist sat down with Bagenal to discuss the film and how she and her team of executive producers went about conveying the polluter pays principle to a general audience. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Courtesy of Netflix Q. What was your motivation for producing a film about overconsumption, and the role of big consumer goods companies in turning it into a crisis? A. We knew the waste problem was a really big problem, but we were worried about making something depressing that people turn away from. And so gradually, we evolved our thinking into shifting away from piles of rubbish and landfills and things like that — instead, we thought: Well, where’s it all coming from? And as you start peeling back the layers and going another step back, you realize that any film about waste is really going to have to be about who’s making the stuff that becomes waste. That was really a revelation for us — we realized that we could tell the story a bit differently and target companies that hadn’t been held accountable. Q. The film’s subtitle is “The Shopping Conspiracy,” hinting at the strategies companies use to get people to buy more while still denying responsibility for the resulting trash. But one could argue that this is exactly what we’d expect from companies incentivized to maximize their profits. Why do you think their behavior warrants being called out as a conspiracy? A. We had a lot of conversations about this — in the back of the taxi, in the back of the studio, in the edit suite. There’s no table where these imaginary execs sat around and decided to do this and then laid it on the world. But the conspiracy comes from the fact that you can’t work for one of these companies and not know the truth: that, while we’re all here trying to do our best, feeling guilty and wondering what we can do, these big companies are well aware of the impact they have on the planet and are still not doing enough. If I go down to the shop and decide to not buy a pot of yogurt because it might not be recyclable, nothing will change. But if a company like Adidas or Amazon or Apple actually decided to sell less stuff or make a product that would last three times as long, then something would change. Q. The philosophy you’re describing — that polluters should pay for their pollution — has been popularized among policy wonks as “extended producer responsibility.” What strategies did you use to make that idea more accessible? A. EPR is really popular in NGO [nongovernmental organization] and business circles, but we felt it was going to be really hard to communicate in a film and to get people to care. So we spent a lot of time trying to crystallize it into something that feels so obvious, that is hard to fight against. And actually, it was Erik Liedtke, the former Adidas exec, who hit the nail on the head at the end of the film. He said, “Stop putting it on us [the public], stop telling us it’s our responsibility. You produce this stuff, you need to account for its life after it gets thrown away.”  We also called the film “Buy Now!” to get at that moment when you press the button and you decide to give your money to a company. That transaction is the bit that makes money, that’s the bit that the industry is interested in. But once you press “buy now,” you’re making a contract that you don’t know about — you’re now a caretaker of this thing, and it’s your responsibility until you dispose of it, and then it becomes the whole world’s responsibility. The only one who’s not really responsible anymore is the company. Shoppers line up at a store with loaded carts. Courtesy of Netflix Q. Several countries and U.S. states have passed EPR laws, and environmental groups have put forward some ambitious proposals for new ones. But what’s the bigger-picture solution that those policies should be paired with? A. There is a lot of good stuff now that companies are doing. The fashion industry in particular has embraced the idea of EPR, and some of the consumer goods companies like Coca-Cola have talked about it. I think it’s really, really important as a tool for governments to hold companies to account and to share the costs of environmental impacts. But it doesn’t solve the problem entirely. I think all of us still need to buy less stuff, and companies need to make less stuff. It’s fine to tax [companies] for the end-of-life stuff, but it doesn’t get away from the fact that reduction is the ultimate goal. Q. Despite everything you describe about corporate responsibility for climate and environmental pollution, it can still be hard for people to imagine how to resist beyond individual actions — like by shopping less. How do you hope viewers will take action? A. Well, not shopping doesn’t have to be just forgoing something. It feels quite satisfying as an act of resistance to be like, “You know what? I’m not going to spend my precious time and money on this company. I don’t need another coat.”  But the people that I really think about are the people who are working inside companies and have been feeling guilty for a long time. The people who feel like there’s something wrong and they’ve tried to change it and no one’s listened, or that they’re not in the right job and they could be using their time and the energy to do something that is more constructive. It’s those people I would love to watch this and have a change of heart. We’ve already seen some reactions to the trailer from people who work in advertising who basically have said, “You know, we sell this shit to you, that’s what we do all day long. And we all feel really bad about it.” I would love it if there were a few people who saw this and took it as an opportunity to say, “You know what? I can do better than this.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Who’s responsible for waste? A Q&A about the ‘conspiracy’ of overconsumption. on Nov 27, 2024.

Waste
Business
Crisis

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