cans - The Environment Report

Mayors’ Letter on Tar Sands Oil & Bottle Bill Lawsuit

State officials in Michigan want to crack down on people who smuggle cans and bottles across the state line for the deposit money. (Photo by Sarah Alvarez)

Mayors of nearly two dozen U.S. cities are urging the State Department to thoroughly study a proposed new oil pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands oil from northern Canada south to Texas. Lindsey Smith reports Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell signed the letter to the federal government:

In the letter, the mayors say they’re worried about the environmental impact of the pipeline. It would be built west of the Mississippi River – nowhere near Grand Rapids. But Mayor Heartwell says the location doesn’t matter so much to him.

“You know, the truth of the matter is we should all be concerned about any environmental damage anywhere in the world.”

The oil that would flow through the proposed pipeline would come from the same tar sands region of Alberta as the oil that spilled into the Kalamazoo River last year originated from.

FAQs about the bottle bill from the Department of Treasury

American Beverage Association

The Department of Environmental Quality’s Remediation Division

Transcript

(music sting)

This is the Environment Report.

(cans and bottles clinking)

We’re all used to hauling our bottles and cans back to the store to get our 10 cent deposits back. But not all bottles get returned. If they’re lost or recycled or thrown away… the money from the unclaimed deposits goes into a state fund used to clean up pollution. And now, a lawsuit might threaten this fund. Sarah Alvarez has more:

All the unclaimed deposits from Michigan cans and bottles really add up. The state gets about 12 million dollars a year out of it.

A small amount of this money goes back to the retailers who sell the containers. But most of it is used for cleaning up old industrial land or toxic waste. The state also uses the money to finish the clean-up of federal Superfund sites.

With budget cuts, money for pollution cleanup is harder to come by. Anastasia Lundy is with the Department of Environmental Quality. She says her department used to rely on Michigan’s general fund.

“Well, the programs that are funding environmental cleanup no longer receive any general fund whatsoever, so this has increased our reliance on these bottle bill funds to try to keep the programs meeting the most critical needs.”

The state wants as much money in the clean-up fund as possible…They’re worried they are losing money to people they call smugglers. These are people bringing cans into Michigan from other states for deposit money.

You might remember that Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Neuman drive cans and bottles into Michigan.

(Seinfeld clip)

The state is getting serious about cutting down on bottle deposit fraud. So, they want bottle manufacturers to put a special mark on containers sold in Michigan. Bottle return machines would then only take containers with the mark. The state changed the bottle bill to require manufacturers to add the mark… and the manufacturers are now suing the state over the changes to the bill.

The American Beverage Association is bringing the suit. Now, they didn’t return calls for comment on this story. But, they’ve told other media outlets that making special cans and bottles for Michigan will be expensive and they don’t want to do it.

Retailers are siding with the state in the suit. Mike Lashbrook is the President of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesaler Association.

“Well, you know, this issue, the fact that there is this smuggling that’s been going on, it’s not a joke like the Seinfeld episode. It is a major problem.”

He says retailers are also worried about losing money to bottle smugglers.

The state has already put a little over a million dollars into upgrading the bottle machines to read the special mark. If the Beverage Association wins their case the state will lose this money.

For the Environment Report, I’m Sarah Alvarez.

Rebecca: The case is now moving forward in federal court. State officials say they’ll continue to upgrade bottle return machines in counties along the Ohio and Indiana borders.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Waiting for the FDA to Rule on BPA

The chemical Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is found in some plastic food packaging and the inside of most tin-cans. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

The government missed a deadline to
declare whether a chemical in food
packaging is safe. Shawn Allee reports critics are growing
tired of the delay:

Transcript

The government missed a deadline to
declare whether a chemical in food
packaging is safe. Shawn Allee reports critics are growing
tired of the delay:

The chemical is Bisphenol-A, or BPA. It’s found in some plastic food packaging and the inside of most tin-cans.

The US Food and Drug Administration is reviewing whether BPA causes developmental diseases and some cancers. The agency missed a deadline of November 30th, and some groups are getting impatient.

Sarah Jennsen is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says while the Food and Drug Administration deliberates, more studies are coming out against BPA.

“We’ve had studies now published that show toddlers exposed to BPA behave diffrently from toddlers who are not exposed, and so this human research which is being published is very concerning because it’s replicating what we’ve already seen in the animal studies.

The Food and Drug Administration won’t say which studies it’s including in its scientific review of BPA or when it will finish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

BPA Making Little Girls Aggressive?

The researcher plans to follow the children to see if the aggressive behavior is lasting. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

A study has found links between a chemical used in some plastics and aggressive behavior in girls. Lester Graham reports on the latest research on BPA:

Transcript

A study has found links between a chemical used in some plastics and aggressive behavior in girls. Lester Graham reports on the latest research on BPA:

BPA, Bisphenol-A, is used in a lot of plastic products including plastic dental fillings, carbon-less paper receipts and most canned food linings.

Researchers tested 249 pregnant women for their exposure to BPA and then followed-up after they gave birth.

Joe Braun is one of the researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Braun says the mothers were given a lengthy questionnaire on the children’s behavior when they turned two.

“And what we found is that the exposure to BPA, or bisphenol-A, in pregnancy was associated with behaviors like aggression or hyperactivity. And this association was strongest in girls and we really didn’t even observe an association in boys.”

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Braun says they’ll continue to follow the children to see if the aggressive behavior is lasting.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Watering Down Airport Waste

The airport in Portland has installed water collection drains for passengers to dump liquids before getting on their flights. (Photo courtesy of the Port of Portland)

Three years ago, the Department
of Homeland Security passed new
regulations. If you’re a regular
flyer, you know them well: no more
bringing your drinks on the airplane.
It turns out that this ruling isn’t
just inconvenient for us – it’s also
inconvenient for the environment.
Deena Prichep reports
on the beverage restrictions, and
what one airport is doing about it:

Transcript

(sound of an airport)

Modern air travel can be a hassle. We take off our shoes, take off our belts, and get rid of our drinks. Announcements like this one are so common that you barely notice them:

“Morning, folks. Make sure you drink up those beverages prior to going through. That includes bottled water, sodas, juice, coffee.”

Okay, you might notice him. That’s Roger Nelson. He’s a TSA guy at the Portland International Airport.

For most of us, following Nelson’s instructions isn’t really a big deal. But while the impact on the passenger is small, the impact on the environment can be bigger than you’d think.

After the ban on carry-on beverages was put in place, many airports saw a big rise in their checkpoint waste. At Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport, the weight of their trash went up 25%. In the Houston Airport system, checkpoint waste collection went up 70%. Even at an airport the size of Portland’s, they estimate up to a ton of liquid per day was ending up in the waste stream.

Stan Jones is the environmental compliance manager at the Port of Portland. He watches airport trash and recycling to see how good a job they’re doing:

“If we look in the recycling at the checkpoints, people have recycled bottles, but they’re full of beverages. And one thing we don’t want in our recycling is liquids, because the recycling centers don’t want a bunch of wet papers, which wrecks the quality of the recycling. At the same time, we’re seeing if we look in the garbage at the checkpoints, same thing, we got bottles half-full of water, bottles full of water.”

Jones oversees many programs that cut waste at the airport. So he looked into tackling this problem as well. And he found that this wasn’t just an environmental problem – it was costing the airport money. Up to $100 a day in extra dump fees. The tossed-out drinks were also costing money on the staffing side. Janitors struggled to get a handle on overflowing watery trashcans.

Jenny Taylor coordinates the facilities staff.

“One of the things we did was increase the frequency in which the cans were dumped, from every two hours to half an hour. So that was almost a full-time position. That ended up being roughly $100 buck a day, or between $30 and $40,000 a year.”

So with up to $100 a day for extra dumping, and $100 a day for extra staffing, the waste was costing the Airport about $75,000 a year.

So the Port launched a program last fall to tackle the problem. They set up stainless steel collection bins right outside the security checkpoints. Twice a day they’re wheeled off, measured, and drained into modified mop sinks, by janitors like Jason Weixel.

(sound of water draining)

“And, almost 25, I’d say 24 gallons today.”

The liquids flow into the sewer system, instead of being hauled to a landfill, and the empty bottles can then be recycled.

But changing people’s recycling habits can be difficult, especially when they’re running for a flight. Many travelers still toss full bottles into the trash without even noticing the new drains.

But at the Portland International Airport, people like Roger Nelson are there to remind them.

“We do have pouring stations. Yes, the big PS, either left or right, just pour it into there. Once you do pour it, empty out, take the empty bottle with you, fill it up on the other side. Our water is cold, filtered and free. Did I get you on the free part, right?”

So far this little solution is working. The dump stations are diverting several thousand pounds of liquid from the trash every month. And the Port of Portland is working with other airports looking to set up similar systems.

For The Environment Report, I’m Deena Prichep.

Sending a City’s Garbage Up in Flames

Michigan Waste Energy Chief Engineer Brad Laesser checks the cameras and emissions data at Detroit's incinerator. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
The Michigan Waste Energy facility shreds and burns hundreds of tons of trash each day. The plant makes enough electricity to power about half the homes in Detroit. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)

Back in the 1980s and 90s,
dozens of communities across
the US built incinerators to
get rid of their trash. Many
of them financed the massive
furnaces with bonds they’re just
now paying off. And now that
those debts are off their books,
some cities are re-thinking whether
burning trash makes environmental
and economic sense. Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

About 300 garbage trucks dump their loads each day at the nation’s biggest
municipal incinerator.

“You see the conveyor house going across, that’s conveying the fuel to the
boilers.”

That’s Brad Laesser. He’s the chief engineer at the Michigan Waste Energy
facility in Detroit.

The “fuel” he’s talking about is shredded-up trash.

And he says that’s the beauty of facilities like this. They produce electricity.

“So right now we’re putting out about 50 megawatts. But we can go to
here.”

Laesser points to 70 on the output gauge. That’s enough electricity to power
about half the homes in Detroit. And the leftover steam is used to heat and
cool more than 200 buildings downtown.

Sounds great, right?

Well, Brad Van Guilder of the Ecology Center says not so much.

“Be wary of people coming and talking to you about large, expensive magic
machines that are going to dispose of your waste for you.”

Van Guilder says municipal waste incinerators are major contributors to
smog, and spew dangerous pollutants like dioxin, lead and mercury.

And he says huge furnaces like Detroit’s make it nearly impossible to get
viable recycling efforts off the ground.

“Think about what’s in the trash that you throw out every day. One of the
most important components is paper and plastic.”

Both can be recycled. But Detroit has not had a curbside recycling program
for the past 20 years. That’s because the contract with the incinerator
required that all trash picked up at the curb be used to keep the furnaces
burning.

That changed this summer, though – when the contract expired. Now about
30,000 households are part of a curbside recycling pilot project. And there
are drop-off sites where people can take their recyclables.

(sound of recycling center)

Matthew Naimi heads an organization that runs several drop-off sites, and –
maybe surprisingly – he’s okay with the incinerator. Naimi says he sees
trash disposal and recycling as two separate industries.

“I realized that if we shut the incinerator down before we got a good
established recycling program running, we’d be burying our recyclables
instead of burning them.”

And officials with Covanta – which runs the Detroit incinerator – agree that
recycling and incineration can work together.

Paul Gilman is the chief sustainability officer for Covanta. He says landfills
are the problem – not recycling.

“Landfills and energy-from-waste facilities, that’s where the competition is.
It isn’t at the upper step of recycling.”

He says cheap landfill space makes the economics of incineration difficult.

But he’s hoping that could change with the passage of a climate change bill
in Washington. Gilman says in Europe and Asia, trash incinerators like
Detroit’s don’t get treated the same way as power plants fueled with coal or
natural gas.

“So in Asia, under the Kyoto protocols, a facility like this actually generates
what are called greenhouse gas credits. They’re reducing greenhouse gasses
by the act of processing solid waste and keeping it from going to a landfill.”

Where trash produces methane – a potent greenhouse gas.

But the people who want the incinerator shut down say they don’t believe
burning trash is the greener way to go. They want the city to landfill its
waste while it builds an aggressive recycling program.

So far, they’re not getting what they want from city leaders.

The board that oversees how Detroit handles its trash recently voted to go
with incineration for at least the next year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sarah Hulett.

San Francisco Makes Composting Mandatory

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signs mandatory composting into law (Photo courtesy of the Press Office of Mayor Newsom)

San Francisco already leads the
nation in recycling. Now, that
city has the first mandatory
composting law in the country.
Emily Wilson reports that’s got
some people worried about “garbage
cops”:

Transcript

Putting recyclables into the blue bin is second nature for people in San Francisco.

But this new law now means also putting coffee grounds and eggshells into a green bin.

There are some people who are concerned about Big Brother looking through their garbage. And then there’s the $100 fine.

Mark Westlund at the Department of the Environment says ‘no worries.’ Not much is going to change.

“Well, we get a lot of calls from people who are worried about garbage cops and that frankly is not going to happen. For years now we’ve been looking in peoples recycling to make sure they’re doing it correctly and if not, they get a tag and if they continue misusing it, they get a letter and a follow up call and then a visit.”

So there are warnings before the fine.

Cities across the country will be watching San Francisco’s mandatory composting law to see how it goes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Emily Wilson.

Inside BPA PR Meeting

BPA doesn't line just baby products - it is in many canned foods and drinks (Source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)

Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:

Transcript

Lyndsey Layton got ahold of those notes. She reports for the Washington Post.

“According to these notes, they called it the ‘holy grail’ spokesperson would be a pregnant, young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.”

Ironic in that many studies associate BPA with birth defects.

John Rost is the Chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance.

He says the reporters got bad notes. He says it only came up because environmental activists used pregnant women to testify against BPA.

“We discussed that as an option and dismissed it and actually find it a little ironic that we are being criticized.”

Some retailers have taken toys and baby bottles made with BPA off the shelf in response to a consumer backlash.

It’s likely most consumers don’t yet realize the chemical also lines beverage and food cans.

For The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

Money Back for Water Bottles

Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:

Transcript

Every time Mary Nemmers buys a bottled beverage, she’s pays a five cent deposit at the register.

She wants to get that money back eventually. So she saves up her bottles and once a month brings them here to New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.

(sound of bottles being sorted)

Nemmers thinks this is a pretty convenient system. She gets to shop while a store employee sorts and hand counts her bottles.

Today Nemmers is getting nine dollars and change for her empties. While she’s glad to get that money back, she’s excited to learn that Oregon’s bottle deposit program has expanded.

“I just got some news that they’ll take back all the cans for deposits. Not just the ones that they sell. That started in January and that saves me an extra trip.”

That’s only part of the change. People in Oregon now also get five cents for every water and flavored water bottle they return to stores. That ends up being a lot of bottles.

Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year. And that number is growing. Most of them end up in a landfill.

For Heather Schmidt, it makes sense to require a deposit for these bottles. She runs the sustainability program at New Seasons.

“We’re getting more back from our customers and that’s a good thing (chuckles). And we know that there’s quite a bit of water purchased, you know, and we’re selling it we want to take it back.”

Out of the eleven states that have bottle deposit programs, Oregon is one of the first to include bottles for water and other non-carbonated drinks.

Maine includes just about every beverage bottle. Connecticut adds bottled water to its program in April. New York and Massachusetts are debating similar expansions.

Mary Nemmers says it was about time that her state recognize that something needed to be done to make sure water bottles stay out of landfills.

“Because I do a lot of walking and I’ve seen lots and lots of water bottles thrown around and in trash cans. I assume that the expansion will reduce that and I’d like to see Oregon stay on the cutting edge of recycling.”

Not everyone is thrilled.

I spoke with the president of the Northwest Grocery Alliance who told me stores want recycling off their property.

A spokesman for the major food outlet Winco said the same thing. Stores say it’s messy to deal with “garbage” and stores have to dedicate staff time to recycling.

Heather Schmidt says at New Seasons Market, they don’t mind.

“Operationally, because we’ve increased the volume, it does mean we’ve had to add some staff labor to that to process but it’s something that we’re committed to.”

While most of the bottles are hand counted at New Seasons Market stores, large chain grocery stores use reverse vending machines.

I can stick a redeemable bottle into the machine. The machine checks to make sure it’s the right kind of bottle. Once it’s accepted, the bottle gets crushed and I get my five cents. Those crushed bottles, along with the plastic ones, end up here.

(sound of recycling plant)

We’re inside a glass and plastic bottle recycling plant. It’s a labyrinth of conveyer belts and equipment. The last drops of stale beer and old soda pop in the bottles make it smell sort of like your gym shoes meet the town dump.

Sadie: “Can we check out where the plastic bottles go?”

John: “Yes, We’ll go back this way.”

That’s John Anderson. He’s the President of the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.

“Now, the plastic, we have seen an increase, but we’re only two months into this expansion at this point and it’s a slower time of year for water and flavored water.”

We stop in front of three bales of recycled plastic that remind me of massive hay bales.

I can pick out the water bottles scrunched together with a lot of soda bottles. These plastic bales will be sold to manufacturers – mostly overseas – who will turn this plastic back into something useable.

Anderson says all of the glass though, stays local and gets turned back into beer bottles.

Bottle deposits work.

The states that have bottle deposit laws have dramatically high bottle recycling rates – as high as Michigan’s 97%.

But the U.S. average is below 40%. The rest of those bottles spend forever in a landfill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

Kicking a Chemical Out of Cans

Tomatoes are posing a problem for a BPA-free lining - they are so acidic they can eat through it (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:

Transcript

(sound of forklift backing up, pumpkin seeds pouring out of roaster)

It’s pumpkin seed roasting day at Eden Foods. It’s a natural foods company based in Michigan. It sells things like rice, canned beans, and all kinds of packaged fruits and sauces.

Michael Potter is the company’s president. More than a decade ago, he came across some news reports out of Europe.

“And I learned all the can linings in the USA were lined with this lining that leaches BPA into foods from the can.”

That got him thinking, and researching. Then he started badgering his can manufacturers.

“We virtually begged them to provide us an alternative. We persisted in hounding them and eventually the Ball Corporation said they’d make a can with an old lining they used to make.”

The lining’s made from a plant resin instead of the epoxy resin with BPA. The thing was, it would cost Eden Foods 14 percent more – that’s about 2 cents a can.

But Michael Potter says he had to make the switch.

“We’re selling this not only to people that we don’t know, in the market, we’re feeding it to our children, our grandchildren and ourselves – we didn’t want to eat bisphenol A.”

But there was one problem. He couldn’t make the switch for canned tomatoes.

Tomatoes are acidic, and they can eat through the plant resin can lining. That could lead to bacteria or rust getting into the food.

“There is no alternative for high acid foods other than bisphenol-A lining at this point. We are urging, nudging, demanding a bisphenol-A free alternative. And we’re optimistic we’ll end up with one.”

But the metal can industry says those alternatives just don’t exist right now.

John Rost is with the North American Metal Packaging Alliance. He says the industry is trying to find new materials. But he says shoppers shouldn’t worry about eating canned food.

“The levels of BPA that are coming from epoxy can linings are exceedingly low. We’re talking low parts per billion. That level has been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada and the US FDA.”

That’s true, but Health Canada has declared BPA toxic. It’s making moves to limit its use.

A number of independent scientists debate that there’s any safe level of BPA.

Maricel Maffini studies BPA at Tufts University School of Medicine. She says they’ve seen harmful effects on lab animals at the same very low levels of BPA that are leaching into our food from cans.

She says that’s because BPA acts like the hormone estrogen.

“You just need a tiny little signal to trigger an effect. So I think it’s unfair to say there is a safe dose because as scientists we cannot say that yet. We have not found a dose that is low enough where we don’t see effects.”

She says babies and kids are the most at risk. She says BPA has caused lasting damage in lab animals when the animals were exposed to the chemical both before and after birth.

“I think we should be concerned, I think we should limit our consumption of canned foods especially if you are pregnant or if you have babies.”

It’s possible that US can makers will be forced to stop using BPA. Leaders in Congress have introduced bills that could soon ban BPA in all food and beverage containers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Getting People to Stop Burning Trash

Robert Olsen used to burn his trash. Now he drives his trash into town. (Photo by Todd Melby)

Getting rid of your trash in the city
is easy. Take it to the curb on pickup
day and the city does the rest. In rural
areas, many people don’t have garbage pickup.
So they burn their trash. And that causes
pollution. Todd Melby tells us about one
place that’s trying to change its burning
habits:

Transcript

Getting rid of your trash in the city is easy. Take it to the curb on pickup day and the city does the rest. In rural areas, many people don’t have garbage pickup. So they burn their trash. And that causes pollution. Todd Melby tells us about one place that’s trying to change its burning habits:

Robert Olsen lives out in the country. He used to burn his garbage. But not any more.

(Pickup hatch opens)

On this windy morning, Olsen has driven his pickup into town to dump his trash.

“I think this is probably a week’s worth for us.”

He grabs the blue plastic bin from the back of his pickup and dumps it into a green Dumpster.

“Not too difficult.”

Olsen runs the environmental office here in Lincoln County, Minnesota. It was his idea to set-up nine Dumpsters throughout this sparsely populated county. He did it because he knows that burning garbage pollutes.

“The issue is that when you burn garbage at home, in the country, the first people or persons who are going to experience any harmful effects from that garbage are going to be you.”

That’s because a lot of trash — including even plain old paper — contains chlorine that produce dioxins when burned at home. Plastic is even worse.

Mark Rust is a solid waste expert with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

“If you’re using a burn barrel or fire pit or you’re burning garbage in any way on your own property, you’re creating a perfect factory for producing dioxins.”

Smoke from burn barrels and fire pits are now the leading source of dioxins in air pollution. Some studies have connected dioxins to cancer. Burning garbage is especially bad because there are no anti-pollution scrubbers on do-it-yourself burners.

“With a burn barrel, it’s all right there.”

Melby: “It all just goes right up into the air?”

“Into the air, into the soil. Ultimately, we’re going to be taking it in on the dinner table.”

Most states still allow people living in the country to burn their garbage. In Minnesota, only farmers and those without access to affordable garbage pickup can burn. A 2005 survey found that about half of the people living in rural Minnesota burn at least occasionally.

Which is why the state offered rural counties some start up money to get people to burn less.

Rural residents in Lincoln County, Minnesota have had access to drop-off sites for seven months now. When the program started, haulers took away about 8 tons of trash every month. Now it’s up to 15 tons.

Back at one of the county’s drop-off sites, Clarence Lietz is getting of his Buick and grabbing newspapers for the nearby recycling bin. What doesn’t get recycled, gets burned, he says.

“What garbage we have like small things for the yard we just burn right at home, you know. I’d say about a five-gallon pail full or something like that.”

Another elderly customer — she didn’t want her name used — says she burns junk mail and envelopes at home.

“Papers. That’s all you can burn. I don’t burn garbage.

Melby: “And why don’t ya?”

“It’s not right to burn garbage. It don’t burn any good anyway.”

Melby: “Why isn’t it right to burn it?”

“You know why, don’t cha?”

I do now.

For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

Tag: cans

Mayors’ Letter on Tar Sands Oil & Bottle Bill Lawsuit

Transcript

Waiting for the FDA to Rule on BPA

Transcript

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BPA Making Little Girls Aggressive?

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Watering Down Airport Waste

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Sending a City’s Garbage Up in Flames

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San Francisco Makes Composting Mandatory

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Inside BPA PR Meeting

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Money Back for Water Bottles

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Kicking a Chemical Out of Cans

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Getting People to Stop Burning Trash

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