Read the latest news stories and opinion pieces related to the environment, including Maine’s air, land, water, and wildlife, in this month’s News & Noteworthy. October 29, 2020 Portland Press Herald op-ed: Cities, States Leading the Way in Combating Climate Crisis NRCM Sustainable Maine Director Sarah Nichols is quoted in this article: EPR-style Legislation Increasingly Draws Read More
landfills
Mainers Call for Greater Protections at State-owned Landfills
News release (September 16, 2020) — A group of Maine residents and the Penobscot Nation will call on the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) at their September 17th meeting to support a citizen’s petition that will ban out-of-state waste from being disposed in State-owned landfills and enact greater environmental justice protections for those communities directly Read More
Why You Should Care about Landfills
There’s a hidden climate villain in Maine that you might not know about, and it’s where about 75% of our total waste goes. According to the U.S. EPA, landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States.[1] Pound for pound, methane has about 30 times more atmospheric heat-trapping capability than carbon Read More
NRCM Testimony in Support of LD 988, An Act To Reduce the Landfilling of Municipal Solid Waste
Senator Carson, Representative Tucker, and members of the Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, my name is Sarah Lakeman and I am the Sustainable Maine Project Director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM). I appreciate this opportunity to testify in support of LD 988, which would help Maine’s waste policy better Read More
NRCM Testimony in Support of LD 401, An Act to Preserve State Landfill Capacity and Promote Recycling
Senator Carson, Representative Tucker, and members of the Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, my name is Sarah Lakeman and I am the Sustainable Maine Project Director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM). I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you in support of LD 401. For years, NRCM has been Read More
Bath to Present Plastic Bag Ban
by Nathan Strout Times Record news story After months of work, the Bath Solid Waste Advisory Committee is preparing to present an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags and polystyrene containers, while also putting fees on paper bags. “The Solid Waste Advisory Committee has been meeting since last January or February, so for several months, examining Read More
They Might Be Old, But They’re Still Cold! Learn about Re-Fridge.
Mitch Newlin, a senior at Bates College in Lewiston, has created a novel business, Re-Fridge, based on efforts to prevent a wasteful practice he noticed as an underclassman. After his first year at Bates, Newlin was astonished to see that at the end of each year, college campuses are rife with piles of items students Read More
Food Scrap Recycling Isn’t Just For Southern Maine Anymore. Rural Maine Takes A Bite At The Apple.
By Christopher Burns, staff writer Bangor Daily News news story It’s no secret that Mainers produce a lot of food scraps, most of which end up either in a garbage incinerator or a landfill, where those scraps take up valuable space and become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. But the day is coming Read More
Controversial Hampden Waste Facility Gets Clearance
The Natural Resources Council says it is ‘dumbfounded’ by the state Department of Environmental Protection’s decision. by Madeline St. Amour, Morning Sentinel Portland Press Herald news story The Department of Environmental Protection has issued the final permits for a first-of-its-kind waste management plant in Hampden that would convert trash from more than 100 central Maine Read More
