News Feeds

Greenbelt Alliance encourages voters in Sausalito to say YES to Measure X.
This measure amends and modernizes Ordinance 1022, passed by voters in 1985, and retires the Marinship Specific Plan. 

The Ordinance was initially created to reduce traffic from new development and preserve the maritime character of the commercial and industrial zones. Forty years later, those same rules now prevent waterfront businesses from growing, thriving, and adapting. Buildings are aging, infrastructure is crumbling, streets are flooding, and office buildings stand half vacant. Because 1022 was created by a citywide voter initiative, only a new citywide voter initiative can change it.

Why It Matters

As a Bay Area organization committed to ensuring the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate, we support Measure X.  

Utilizing developed footprint more effectively 

Decades ago, Marin County had the foresight to protect ridgelines, farmland, watersheds, and open space. Doing so protected our important natural resources, but it also limited space for our built environment. That means we must build more efficiently to make the most of our limited development footprint. But current Sausalito planning processes are slowing down the pace of progress.

By saying Yes on X, routine land-use decisions return to normal city government processes (with public hearings, environmental review, and community input). No ballot would be required for everyday decisions. This doesn’t bypass planning; it makes planning viable. 

The reality of sea level rise

Like many wartime Bay Area developments, the Marinship—a roughly 210 acres of flat, serviced, already-developed waterfront in the middle of Sausalito—was developed on filled marshland, and it’s subsiding. The shoreline is aging, privately fragmented, and deteriorating. Its flood risks are present and will increase as our climate changes. Bay Area communities like Sausalito need to adapt to keep pace with climate change. Measure X can generate revenue for roads, sea level rise, and resident services—reducing pressure for higher taxes.

By building more efficiently on developed footprints and adapting to a changing shoreline, we can create a more resilient Sausalito. On your November ballot, vote YES on X.

The post Vote Yes on Measure X in Sausalito appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 29, 2026

MEDIA CONTACTS
Madeline Bove, 202-683-2539, mbove@fwwatch.org,
Jill Hindenach, 202-494-6309, jhindenach@leadershipcounsel.org   
Mike Heymsfield; mheymsfield@aldf.org
Dashel Murawski; dmurawski@centerforfoodsafety.org

Yesterday, groups filed an opening brief in their case to force California’s Air Resources Board to reform its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) so that it no longer perversely encourages factory farms to pollute at the expense of rural communities in California and across the country. 

In amending the LCFS in 2024 to double down on incentives for factory farm “biogas” production, the groups argue that the Air Resources Board violated the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Administrative Procedure Act, and the Global Warming Solutions Act, California landmark climate law from 2006. 

Groups include Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Límpio (“Defensores”), Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the Center for Food Safety, and Food & Water Watch. 

The brief, filed in Fresno Superior Court, advances three main arguments: 

1. CARB violated California law by causing disproportionate impacts in low-income communities.
2. CARB violated California law by allowing fossil fuel companies to buy fake LCFS offset credits from factory farms to claim lower climate emissions.
3. CARB failed to disclose, analyze, and mitigate the significant environmental impacts caused by the LCFS Amendments.

“CARB is encouraging the production of, and has failed to regulate, excessive dairy manure pollution at the expense of air, water, and local communities,” said David Rodriguez, founding member of Defensores. “In the Central Valley, we live near 90% of cows in California and some of the largest dairy operations in the entire world. The impacts are getting worse as dairies are getting more cows and dairy digesters are installed.”

“CARB has known for years that its perverse and backward policies that reward factory farms for polluting with LCFS credits are bad for the program and bad for Californians. CARB prioritized industry profits over protecting vulnerable communities and achieving real climate progress, and they now have to defend those decisions in court,” said Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Tyler Lobdell, “If California wants to be a climate leader, it needs to act like one.”

“CARB should prioritize Californians and their health by reducing dairy and livestock pollution. Instead, it’s incentivizing the production of even more manure despite the harm it causes to surrounding communities, the environment and animals suffering in factory farms,” said ALDF Litigation Fellow Christian Suarez. “It’s critical that CARB works on behalf of Californians to protect their health and well-being instead of helping the industrial animal agriculture industry line its pockets at the public’s expense.”

“By rewarding industrial dairies for producing factory farm gas, CARB’s LCFS program entrenches a harmful model of agriculture while putting smaller, more sustainable farms at a disadvantage,” said Center for Food Safety Staff Attorney Kristina Sinclair. “California should be investing in a food and farming system that protects our climate, our environment, and the health of rural communities—not propping up the largest and most polluting factory farms.”

BACKGROUND
California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard has been the nation’s primary driver of factory farm biogas development, both in California and beyond. Food & Water Watch analysis reveals that 196 digesters in 16 states make money off of California’s LCFS — out-of-state projects make up 45%. 

The LCFS incentivizes pollution in communities across the nation already overburdened with factory farm pollution, including those in California’s San Joaquin Valley, through lavish financial incentives for so-called “biogas” produced from manure. 

By rewarding methane production on factory farms, the LCFS incentivizes the concentration of animals and animal waste production and exacerbates the negative health impacts of industrial factory farming, including mortality risks, kidney diseases, respiratory conditions, blood pressure elevation, and low birth weight. These impacts disproportionately fall on communities of color and low-income communities. 

Petitioners are Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio, Food & Water Watch, Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Food Safety. Defensores is represented by Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, the Law Office of Brent Newell, and Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP.

The post Groups File Opening Brief in LCFS Biogas Lawsuit appeared first on Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability.

Restore the Delta’s Delta Science Program, led by Delta Science Program Manager Spencer Fern, received the Outstanding Environmental Projects Award on behalf of the Friends of the San Francisco Estuary Board. 

The award, presented at this year’s Bay-Delta Science Conference, recognized the program’s work under this year’s theme, “The Opportunity of Change: Building and Being the Future Together.”

In the summer of 2021, Restore the Delta learned of a strong, unpleasant odor coming from the downtown waterfront in Stockton, CA. The water was dark, green, and filled with Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), with no signs warning the public of their toxicity or an active public monitoring procedure in place.

With training from San Francisco Baykeeper and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, our team spent that summer testing local Delta waterways for HABs while sharing our findings on social media to raise public awareness.

That work five years ago, became the foundation for what is now known as our Climate Water Advocates internship, a program that continues to train the next generation to monitor HABs throughout the Delta’s hottest months.

We are incredibly proud to see this work recognized and will continue to prioritize science-based water quality management for Delta communities, Tribes, and the entire Delta estuary. 

Measure O would modernize Albany’s zoning process, support housing availability, and restore transparent citywide decision-making. 

In 1978, Measure D created a special requirement for zoning changes in Albany’s Residential Single-Family (R-1) areas: before the City Council could act, at least 50% of resident voters within 300 feet of a proposed change had to sign a verified petition. After nearly five decades, this outdated rule makes it harder for Albany to respond fairly and effectively to today’s housing needs.

Measure O allows the City Council to consider future updates through the same processes to apply across Albany (such as public hearings and environmental review when required).

Measure O also brings the City into compliance with its 2023-2031 Housing Element, which commits the City to pursue repeal of Measure D’s neighborhood petition requirement. Greenbelt Alliance joins other partners in supporting this measure, including the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville.

Why It Matters

As an organization that advocates for climate SMART development and sensible land-use policies, we are excited to endorse Measure O.

Decisions about citywide housing policy should be made through a standardized, public process, not controlled by a narrow petition requirement limited to voters living within 300 feet of a project. Measure O is a good governance measure and a sensible approach to land use that expands participation and supports equitable housing opportunities.

Vote YES on Measure O for a fair, modern, and accountable zoning process that helps Albany plan responsibly for housing today and in the future.

The post Vote Yes on Measure O To Modernize Zoning and Unlock Housing in Albany appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Following the appearance of a second television ad boosting the image of President Donald Trump and paid for by government funds, Public Citizen filed a complaint with the FCC, FTC, individual broadcasters urging media companies to immediately stop airing the ad.

Public Citizen also filed a second complaint with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) alleging that the new ad violates laws prohibiting the use of government resources for propaganda, the Hatch Act, and other related laws. The ads, which are airing in two media markets containing key districts in the upcoming midterm elections, include a disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. government.” Public Citizen previously submitted a complaint to GAO and OSC after the first Trump-promoting government-funded ad appeared on air last week.

“That the Trump administration not only failed to acknowledge and investigate last week’s illegal ad, but instead doubled down and released a second piece of taxpayer funded political propaganda during the mass-viewing moment of Sunday football is appalling and alarming,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “These illegal ads should immediately be pulled from the air, and the White House’s many apparent violations of the law should be investigated.”

“This administration’s repeated and flagrant violations of the law, including the Hatch Act, are an affront to taxpayers and our democracy,” said Craig Holman, Ph.D., a government ethics expert with Public Citizen. “The FCC and other oversight agencies are charged with ensuring this type of abuse of taxpayer funds does not happen. But that system only works if they take action.”

The letter to broadcasters notes that they should refrain from airing advertisements that they know are otherwise illegal under the law, and that broadcasters must maintain a public file on any political ads they air. Failing to uphold this duty can result in broadcast license revocation.

The FCC/FTC complaint is available to read here, and the second OSC and GAO complaint can be found here.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a resolution (S.Res.852) that would force the government to issue an official report on Israel's human rights abuses in the West Bank. The resolution—led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-MD, and co-sponsored by 24 senators—would require the State Department to issue a report detailing the killings committed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, abuses of Palestinian children and other gross human rights violations by Israel. If the resolution is adopted, the government would have 30 days to issue the report. If that fails to happen, certain covered security assistance programs for Israel would be halted until the report is submitted. Demand Progress is leading a campaign in support of the resolution and has also led campaigns that have driven more than 1.5 million contacts to Congress this year opposing military action in the Middle East and military aid to Israel.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian:

“We know that Americans have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers and that Palestinian children face detention and abuse in Israeli military custody. U.S. taxpayers deserve answers about what happened and what our government is doing to prevent its military aid from fueling human rights violations and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Demanding transparency and enforcing U.S. laws governing military aid should be the bare minimum for any senator. This resolution is a long-overdue first step. Every senator should support it, then follow through by supporting resolutions to block any new arms sales to Israel.”

The market for commercial systems will grow 27% over the next five years, say American Clean Power and Wood Mackenzie.

Shortages of skilled labor and equipment, as well as local opposition, are threatening even high profile projects backed by big tech companies. Developers are responding by embracing flexibility and alternative technologies once considered too unwieldy.

The Trump administration has scouted sites inside Grand Teton National Park to build a Major League Baseball field, the Washington Post reported Saturday, after MLB asked about staging a regular-season game in a national park.

National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands toured three potential locations, including one the Post described as “already disturbed land.” WyoFile, reporting from the park Sunday, noted that while a baseball field can cover about four acres, a stadium can take 25. A full complex with parking can occupy hundreds more. The park’s recently disturbed land is roughly 10 acres of sagebrush bulldozed for a trailhead parking expansion.

Visitors WyoFile spoke with in the park greeted the news with disbelief. “Keep America’s pastime in our baseball parks, not in our national parks,”said David Kelly, an Angels fan from L.A.

National parks are among the country’s most protected national public lands. Constructing a baseball field at Grand Teton could set a dangerous precedent for the entire park system.

“America’s national parks are already in a league of their own,”said Aaron Weiss, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. “We have a responsibility to care for them, not turn them into a TV spectacle.”

Quick hits Increased traffic, shrunken monuments headline policy shifts on public lands

CPR News

More mining claims staked at Bears Ears

The Land Desk

Burgum brought Venezuelan gold bars to the Roosevelt Room

New York Times

After Trump opened Bears Ears land to business, prospectors swooped in

Grist

Trump admin eyes major BLM restructuring

Politico

The coal industry asked for a rescue. Trump obliged

New York Times

Peaches put this town on the map. The Colorado River drought could wipe it all away

Washington Post

A private ranch that wants 2,000 acres of federal land in Colorado has spent $200,000 to lobby a congressman

Denver Post

Quote of the day

MLB you should know that Grand Teton National Park, home to free ranging wildlife, including grizzly bears, bison, wolves, moose, cougars and elk, is not an appropriate or safe venue for your baseball fantasy.”

—Joan Anzelmo, former superintendent of Colorado National Monument, WyoFile

Picture This @nationalparkservice

Katmai’s brown bears are among the largest bears on Earth. Standing 3–5 feet at the shoulder and stretching 7–10 feet long, they are less “large animal” and more “walking pile of muscle with a snack agenda.”

By mid-summer, adult males are already tipping the scales at 600–900 pounds. But as winter approaches, they enter their annual transformation phase: less “bear,” more “professional food storage unit.”

By October and November, some large males can weigh over 1,000 pounds. Adult females are typically about one-third smaller than males, but still impressively chunky because in the bear world, “getting ready for winter” means turning calories into a luxurious layer of portable insulation. Same.

 

(Featured image: Grand Teton National Park near Jackson Lake Lodge. Photo by Chascar, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Burgum considers building MLB ballpark in Grand Teton National Park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The energy project developer sees opportunities in Texas, PJM Interconnection and the Southwest Power Pool, but officials say they must carefully navigate an uncertain regulatory backdrop.

The Stay Grounded network has launched a new project called ‘Red Lines for Airports’. It seeks to unite and support groups campaigning against airport expansion projects and build power for a reduction of air traffic. As part of it we’re running a European Tour, visiting members, and supporting with workshops and skill-shares. In September 2026, we joined local groups campaigning against the…

Source

Brazil’s environment minister says he is “very optimistic” that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new rainforest fund to channel private and public finance to developing nations – can meet a key $10 billion funding target this year, and is not at risk from his country’s elections next month.

The TFFF, launched by Brazil at COP30 in the Amazon last November and co-led by Norway, is intended as an alternative to traditional grant-based forest finance. The fund aims to raise $125bn in public and private capital, invest it in bond markets, and then pay countries that keep their forests standing from the annual returns. Donor contributions needed to get it going have tailed off after an initial burst.

Speaking to Climate Home News on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York, Brazilian environment minister João Paulo Capobianco pointed out that in less than a year since its official launch, the TFFF has already secured $7.3bn from governments.

“How many other initiatives can say that?” he asked. “Of course, if you have $7 billion, it’s easier for more countries to consider their own contribution. And not just countries – non-governmental organisations also. We are expecting even more support.”

• Sep 28, 2026 Comment As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers Finance to help agriculture adapt to a hotter world and more extreme weather is vital for food security – but new data shows it’s on a downward trend Read more
• Sep 25, 2026 News COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs” Amnesty International says the provision in the hosting agreement could have a “chilling effect” on free expression in Antalya Read more
• Sep 24, 2026 News Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood Efforts to protect marine ecosystems and coastal communities have risen up the political agenda at the UN General Assembly in New York Read more

As its initial target, the TFFF aims to raise $10bn in seed capital from governments by the end of 2026, and still needs to fill a gap of $2.7bn. Its backers say that for each dollar in public funding, they can secure $4 from the private sector. Critics say the $10bn goal barely covers the fund’s expenses and would not allow it to make any significant payments to forest countries.

Because setting up its financial architecture, raising the starting capital and making the first investments will take time, experts say the TFFF is unlikely to generate any payments for developing countries before 2028.

Seeking new pledges

Capobianco told Climate Home News that Brazil is still in talks with potential new contributors to the fund, among them China, Korea and Japan, and said he hoped to see more pledges announced at the upcoming biodiversity and climate COPs in October and November. The Netherlands is expected to up its first small contribution and Canada may also come in, according to other sources close to the TFFF.

Because the fund was not created as part of the UN climate talks and is hosted by the World Bank, developing countries can contribute without taking on wider donor responsibilities for climate finance. Brazil and Indonesia – both large emerging rainforest nations – have each pledged $1bn to the TFFF.

Earlier in September, the UK became the latest country to pledge funding – promising a loan of £400 million (about $540 million). Capobianco welcomed the contribution and noted that Britain has also said it will keep “under review” the possibility of putting in more.

Currently the largest donor is Norway, which announced a $3bn pledge last year at COP30 in Belém. However, that pledge came with conditions, among them that the fund must reach $10bn in sponsor capital by 2026, and that Norway’s contribution can’t make up more than 20% of that total. Over the longer term, this means the fund must raise $15bn from governments to unlock Norway’s full investment.

Comment: UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency

Speaking at a forest finance event in New York, Norway’s environment minister Sigrun Aasland said the country’s pledge was made not “only out of solidarity but because of shared interests”, adding that protecting rainforests is critical for climate and biodiversity goals as well as for national security.

“Tropical deforestation matters to people in the Amazon and in the Congo. But let’s not forget that it also matters to global food production and to the cost of living in Oslo or in London,” she said.

At the event, Guyana’s minister of natural resources Vickram Bharrat said the TFFF is “one in a menu of options” to finance forest protection in developing countries. He added that to boost its capital “maybe we should put some amount of pressure on oil companies to contribute to the fund”.

Upcoming election “not a risk”

Brazil, which has been pivotal to getting the fund off the ground, is now heading into a national election that could see the country swing back to an anti-climate stance if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro beats current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Capobianco, however, said the election result does not pose a risk to the TFFF.

“It’s a global initiative, not a Brazilian initiative. We proposed the first idea, but nowadays it’s a global initiative,” he said. “We believe the investor countries and the tropical countries together have the possibility to continue this process.”

In Brazil, the first round of voting is scheduled for Sunday, October 4. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, a run-off ballot will take place on October 25.

COP30 roadmap to end deforestation will invite countries to draft domestic plans

In July, the TFFF board adopted a charter, which outlines the instrument’s objectives and values, including that 20% of the payments made to tropical countries will go directly to Indigenous people and local communities.

The charter also says the TFFF board may comprise up to 12 member countries during the initial phase. Currently, seven seats are filled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Indonesia.

The board has also formally incorporated the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – the TFFF’s investment arm that will trade bonds in financial markets – hosted in Luxembourg.

The post Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone appeared first on Climate Home News.

Inclusive investment is a mechanism enabling distributed resources to scale beyond affluent early adopters, creating a broader pathway for virtual power plants, writes Zuha Maryam Shaikh at Clean Energy Works.

Agrarian reform is historical reparation. It is not only about economic restitution, although that is also important. We want the right to access land to be guaranteed.

The post Brazil: Agrarian Reform is Historical Reparation and a Condition for Democracy appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Many improved their performance through building upgrades and energy-efficiency measures like lighting upgrades, envelope work, installing heat pumps or implementing energy management systems, a city official said.

Internal emails show a department administrator stating “let’s let the comms shop find . . . the rationale behind their statistics” when asked to substantiate anti-solar claims underpinning the policy changes, the complaint says. 

LONG ISLAND – The National Audubon Society in New York has been awarded $1,631,254 through the EPA Long Island Sound Partnership Supplemental Grant Program to advance the next stage of the Sunken...

The average child born in the UK in the 1950s was toilet trained by the age of two years and four months. Five decades later, the average child wouldn’t reach that milestone until after their third birthday.

Those statistics are more than just a curious reflection of changing parenting practices. They also shed light on the growing plastic waste crisis. Later toilet training means more used diapers, and since the diaper market also shifted from mostly cloth to mostly disposable over the same decades, that all adds up to a lot more diapers being tossed in the trash.

Today, more than 300,000 diapers are thrown away every minute around the globe. In wealthy countries, the vast majority of disposable diapers and other absorbent hygiene products such as incontinence products and menstrual supplies wind up in a landfill or incinerator. In parts of the world that lack good waste collection systems, diapers are often dumped or burned, resulting in plastic pollution, contaminated water, and the risk of disease.

Absorbent hygiene product waste amounts to somewhere between 160 and 200 million metric tons each year and makes up nearly one-tenth of municipal solid waste by weight globally, according to a new paper in Nature Sustainability. “With a growing and ageing population this problem is only getting worse, so it is important we act now to reduce the waste, and find more sustainable solutions for the waste that is inevitable,” says study team member Elze Porte, a materials sustainability researcher at University College London.

Porte and her collaborator, UCL materials scientist Mark Miodownik, spent two and a half years (if their study were a child born in the 1950s, it would be toilet trained by now) talking with manufacturers of cloth and disposable diapers, government agencies, waste collection and processing companies, and caregiving and healthcare professional organizations. They even visited a factory and a diaper recycling facility.

The result is three broad strategies for making absorbent hygiene products more sustainable. (Their strategies focus on diapers but are more broadly applicable, they say.) One is to reduce the use of disposable hygiene products. That could be accomplished by switching to reusable diapers or earlier toilet training – or, more precisely, reversing the trend towards later toilet training.

Changes to workplace and childcare systems are needed to make this more feasible for parents, the researchers say. But earlier toilet training can also be better for children’s bladder and bowel health. “For us, this was interesting to learn, because it means that reducing diaper waste by bringing back down the toilet training age can save money for families, support children in their development, and is better for the environment,” Porte says. “It is rare to find such a win-win-win solution.”

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:What does family planning look like in a warming world?

 

A second strategy is developing technologies to recycle absorbent hygiene products. This is challenging because disposable diapers are a complex mix of materials: different kinds of plastics, fibers, superabsorbent gels. So there needs to be a way to collect used diapers separately from other municipal waste, then separate the different materials and then recycle each one.

But recycling diapers isn’t as pie-in-the-sky as it might first sound. There are several diaper recycling facilities already operating in multiple countries, although they generally only recycle part of the diaper and often result in downcycling of materials.

The final strategy is developing fully compostable absorbent hygiene products. The challenge here is making products that will break down in an industrial composter, but not when exposed to the similarly warm, moist environment of the human body.

A separate group of researchers have developed a biodegradable material based on cellulose and citric acid that could replace the fossil-fuel based absorbent gels used in conventional disposable diapers.

Both recycling and composting will require new technologies to remove pathogens and medicine residues from used hygiene products. Some jurisdictions restrict composting of human waste, so regulatory changes may also be necessary. In the meantime, “We are now doing more work on understanding worldwide toilet training practices in the Big Toilet Project,” Porte reports. “We ask parents and carers around the globe to help us by sharing their toilet training journey, helping us to gain insights into how and when they toilet train their children, understand best practices and identify where support is lacking.”

Source: Porte E. and M. Miodownik. “Research priorities for addressing global absorbent hygiene product waste.” Nature Sustainability 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine (baby photo: AndriyPorokhnenko/iStock.com)

As president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro not only weakened environmental regulations and gutted agencies charged with protecting the Amazon, he also railed against conservation. An analysis of his tweets and those of his ministers finds a link between their rhetoric and the acres of forest lost. 

Read more on E360 →

Earthworks begins on key substation for the Copperstring transmission line that will unlock some of the country's biggest renewable energy projects and mining province.

The post Earthworks begin on key substation for inland transmission line that could unlock Queensland renewable riches appeared first on Renew Economy.