Connecticut Green Living

A strange phenomenon has crept into our daily lives here in Connecticut - the resurgence of the plastic bag. I understand that we are in a health crisis. I understand that there is concern about cashiers touching reusable bags. But why the rush to revert to plastic bags? What happened to paper? Another scourge: the plastic glove. I went to People's bank here in Branford and tucked into the envelope cubby were two gloves - one blue, one yellow, wadded like chewing gum. Guess what: someone has to remove those. And then these plastic gloves end up in the same waterways as our plastic bags. Remember the campaign against plastic? Remember climate change? Let me connect the dots. Climate change was already threatening our lives when Covid-19 hit. However, because it's a slower killer there was no 'shelter-in-place' command for climate change . If we had a president who believed in science, perhaps there would have been. Now climate change is rearing its pissed off head in...

London: "There is just one week to go until the third annual Global Recycling Day , taking place on 18th March 2020. Individuals and organisations around the world are getting ready to celebrate the day and raise awareness of the importance of recycling and the ways we can all turn ‘waste’ into a valuable resource," write the Global Recycling Foundation in a press release. The last decade has been the hottest on record, the Global Recycling Foundation points out on their website, and the world is now "facing a climate emergency of unparalleled proportions. If we don’t make significant and rapid changes, we will see continued rising global temperatures, the melting of icecaps, continents on fire and rapid deforestation." Recycling is a key part of the circular economy, they state, and each year the ‘Seventh Resource’ (recyclables) saves over 700 million tons in CO2 emissions, projected to increase to 1 billion tons by 2030. Toward that mission, Global Recyclin...

When I lived with my mother in Texas, she worried about the way I would reuse my straws. "I'm not sure it's sanitary," she said. I told her there was a big movement to curtail plastic use and reuse straws. I had been sent a metal straw a couple years earlier. Mom didn't use straws, but she immediately understood. I was happy to see that there is a nationwide university movement toward this end. Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia has announced that students there recently became "champions" in the nationwide Pledge Against Plastic Straws Campus Challenge 2019. The contest was organized by California-based Simply Straws, which sells reusable straws and encourages college campuses to shutter plastic straw use. Longwood collected 878 pledges from students, staff and the community to “Kick the Straw” habit, putting the university ahead of 71 other institutions. Indiana State came in second place. All one has to do to understand the ills of plasti...

Five students and their teacher from West Haven, Conn., have been recognized as winners of the 2016 President’s Environmental Youth Award (PEYA). The program recognizes outstanding environmental stewardship projects by K-12 youth. These students demonstrate the initiative, creativity, and applied problem-solving skills needed to tackle environmental problems and find sustainable solutions, according to an EPA press release issued June 8. The students – Arya Bairat, James Rodrigues, Eran Avni-Singer, Sebastian-Morelli Peyton, and Jonathan Yun – started a team at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School (part of New Haven Public School District) in West Haven. They conducted their project with the support and guidance of their biology teacher, Ginger Meetze, and parent sponsor, Dhanahree Bairat. Their project addressed the problem of excessive plastics in the waste stream and air pollution, and their impact on the environment. “Today, we are pleased to honor these imp...