Earth Protect Blog

By Sameer Yasir © The New York Times Co. CHENNAI, INDIA » Amul Vasudevan, a vegetable hawker in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, thought she was going to go out of business. The state had forbidden retailers to use disposable plastic bags, which were critical for her livelihood because th...

    By Sue McMillin Columnist for The Denver Post We’ve got a few months to figure out how to organize our lives without the plastic grocery bags and foam take-out containers that are mostly banned under a new Colorado law, and in Denver, a 10 cent fee on disposable bags began Thursday...

China's recent plastic bag ban has been immediately accepted by consumers. In a country where billions of plastic bags are used each day, the government's top-down policy move will likely benefit the country's environment and energy security well before market forces or consumer-led efforts are able...

Paper or plastic? It used to be a simple – and free – choice. But if Gov. Jerry Brown signs the plastic bag bill, California grocers, pharmacies, liquor stores and convenience stores will no longer be able to provide single-use bags to customers at no charge. They will be required to offer pape...

According to a new study, 99% of plastic waste that enters the ocean cannot be located. While initially hearing that there's less plastic in the ocean than we believed sounds like great news, it's actually a frightening prospect. After all, if the plastic isn't in the ocean ... where is it going?! ...

California has become an interesting test-case for both approaches to one plastic problem.Back in 2006, California passed a law that mandated a system for recycling plastic shopping bags. Today, supermarkets and other large stores have receptacles where plastic bags can be returned for recycling. H...

When did everything become Plastic? When I was a kid, we collected shells on the beach, not plastic trash. There wasn't enough disposable plastic in those days for plastics to collect on the beaches. Plastic bags came into heavy use in American grocery stores when I was in high school in the late '...

We use plastics in our everyday life to put our things in when we only need something completely temporary. It is also because we would like to be able to know how to properly dispose these things because these can be considered harmful to the environment. It is really something that you need to con...

Very exciting news for Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council voted on Tuesday, June 18 to approve a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags. The Council voted 11 to 1 in favor of the ordinance, and a final vote is scheduled for next week. Last year, the Council voted 13 to 1 to move f...

    Global plastic production has increased from 1.5 million tonnes per year in 1950, to 245 million tonnes in 2008, reveals MEP The European Commission recently presented a green paper on plastic waste. Plastic has become a symbol of our throw-away society. The use of plastic has sky...

When I was a kid, you could come to New York City and buy a big soda in a large styrofoam cup. (You could also get murdered a lot more easily or score some drugs or afford a place in Soho, but that’s not my point here.) Big soda kept cool in a nice big cup — paradise, in its way. Reuters / Eduard...

When that plastic water bottle that you brought to basketball practice was empty, you probably recycled it. But lots of plastics don’t end up in the recycling bin. (Think deli containers and straws.) So where do they go? One place is the Pacific Ocean, in an area that has been called the Great Paci...

The Big Island of Hawaii is joining the islands of Maui and Kauai and banning the use of plastic bags. The bill won't take effect until next year and gives businesses and additional year to adjust to using paper bags.   Plastic shopping bags are a complicated issue. One one hand, they're much...