Author Archives: David Evans

But one aspect of its operation remains contentious: the packaging. Like most dairy products in the U.S., Alexandre Family Farm’s milk and yogurt are sold in plastic jugs and containers, to the chagrin of some customers. Most plastic packaging is made from fossil fuels and more than 90 percent of it is not recycled. Instead, it fills our landfills, ends up as tiny particles in our soil and our bodies, and more than 8 million tons of it is dumped into oceans annually.As more dairies turn to organic and regenerative practices, consumers are pushing for packaging that eliminates single-use plastics, and dairies like Alexandre are actively looking for new solutions. But, it turns out, there is no simple fix. Switching to glass milk bottles is one approach that has become popular among some consumers, but it comes with the potential for high carbon emissions and logistical challenges. New technologies, including containers made from plants, aren’t yet optimized for holding liquids. And, even if they were, our waste systems can’t process them, meaning most end up in landfills.“We’re not happy to use plastic . . . but there aren’t yet alternative solutions, especially for beverage companies,” said Robert Brewer, Alexandre’s chief operating officer, who has been focused on finding new packaging since he was hired two years ago. “We just can’t continue to put billions of pounds of waste into the ocean and expect to have life on earth.”“We’re not happy to use plastic, but there aren’t yet alternative solutions, especially for beverage companies.”The dairy industry’s pursuit of new packaging also reflects the ongoing debate about whether society’s focus should be on inventing and refining disposable single-use packaging that is compostable or biodegradable or on improving recycling and reinforcing a circular economy that continues to rely on plastic. The makers of plant-based milks (almond, oat, rice, and soy)—many of which are also sold in plastic bottles—face similar conundrums.Retailers, Distributors Refuse Glass Milk Bottles Regardless of how milk is produced, in the U.S. most of it is sold in plastic containers made from virgin high-density polyethylene, also known as HDPE or No. 2 plastic. Nearly two-thirds of milk containers sold in North America are HDPE bottles, followed by cartons (24 percent) and plastic bags (7 percent). In recent years, some dairy companies—including Alexandre Family Farm—are turning to containers made from transparent, sturdy polyethylene terephthalate, which is also known as PET or No. 1 plastic, and commonly used in water bottles.Reba Brindley, a project manager at the University of California, San Francisco, said she gave up on buying Alexandre’s milk specifically because it came in plastic bottles—a choice she finds incompatible with the farm’s other values.“I am impressed by their work and dedication,” Brindley said of Alexandre. “But considering how little plastic is recycled and what an inefficient process it is, I don’t see how they can be held up as an environmental example when they pump out plastic bottles . . . I just can’t handle throwing out a plastic bottle every week.”Brindley switched to milk from the Straus Family Creamery, which comes in reusable glass containers. “There is so much emphasis on recycling when I think we need to move towards reuse and reduce,” said Brindley.Brindley is not alone in believing that glass—once the material of choice for milk bottles—is the dairy industry’s best shot at sustainability. Over the past decade, glass manufacturers have seen a resurgence of glass milk bottles across the U.S., particularly among small dairies and creameries. Some companies offer old-fashioned glass milk delivery to consumers’ doorsteps, while others offer reusable glass bottles that and can be returned to grocery stores, as in the case with Straus.“There is so much emphasis on recycling when I think we need to move towards reuse and reduce.”But while using glass may keep plastic out of landfills, prevent some toxic chemicals from leaching into our milk, and cater to our nostalgia and notions of improved taste and freshness, it’s not a panacea. Each packaging system has environmental impacts that go beyond the issue of solid waste, said Gregory Keoleian, professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. Those environmental impacts stem from material production, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life processing and include energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use.“There will be tradeoffs with respect to these impacts and also between packaging performance and cost,” Keoleian said.Glass bottles weigh much more than other containers, so they take more energy to transport and result in higher transport-based emissions per volume of packaged milk. Extracting raw materials for new glass is also energy intensive, fueled mainly by natural gas. And only 31 percent of all glass containers are recycled—most end up in landfills, where they will take more 1 million years to decompose. Despite these drawbacks, when Keoleian and his colleagues studied milk packaging systems, they found that glass refillable bottles can outcompete single use containers such as plastic HDPE milk jugs and gable-top cartons with respect to energy and carbon footprints as long as they are reused at least five times—and the savings increases at higher reuse rates.Keoleian’s research also found that refillable plastic bottles—which are not used much today— can have an even lower environmental impact than glass because they can have higher reuse rates. But the most sustainable choice for milk packaging? He says it’s lightweight plastic pouches, which are used mostly in Canada and have a significantly smaller environmental impact than reusable glass or plastic. Aluminum, which is recycled at very high rates, could also serve as a sustainable packaging for milk.But most consumers want traditional bottles, Alexandre’s Brewer said, hence his dairy’s search for an alternative to standard plastic. Brewer was vice-president of sales and distribution for Straus from 2004 to 2008, overseeing its glass bottle reuse system. At the time, a significant number of retailers and distributors were willing to offer glass bottles, Brewer said. Today, it’s difficult to get them into large grocery chains.The system, he adds, is a logistical nightmare. Straus buys the glass bottles, made of approximately 30 percent recycled glass, sanitizes, fills, and counts them. They are then sent to a distributor, who is charged a deposit. The distributor delivers the bottles to retailers who, in turn, are charged another deposit, and retailers then sell the milk to customers, who get charged yet another deposit. The whole process is then repeated backwards, until the used bottles are returned to Straus for sanitizing and refilling. In all, it entails six different accounting steps, Brewer said. In addition, the bottles can break during shipping, increasing costs.So while Straus bottles are reused an average of five times before they are recycled (that number is primarily driven by the consumer return rate, which prior to the pandemic was close to 80 percent, and by ink wearing out on bottle labels), it’s a limited retail niche.“It’s not a bad system, it’s just that we were told clearly by retailers and distributors that they were not willing to do it,” Brewer said. “They told us, ‘If you want to come into our stores, you have to put the milk in plastic bottles.’ So the choice was existential.”A spokesperson from Straus Family Creamery, which has bottled its milk in reusable glass since 1994, told Civil Eats that “it may take longer for some stores to adapt and implement new sustainability programs.” But, the creamery added, the bottle logistics and accounting are not onerous once in place and “when retailers realize that there is demand among their shoppers . . . they are willing to invest time in developing the program with us and our distributor partners.” The creamery’s analysis has shown that its glass reuse program prevents approximately 500,000 pounds of milk containers and plastic out of the landfills each year.

Most major fast-food corporations in the West have banned plastic straws and replaced them with paper ones. (Getty Images)The world is going through multiple simultaneous crises that compound one another and have one thing in common – their damaging consequences are caused by human hands.Capable of the worst, but also the best, our species has become a living force able to do dire harm to the natural environment of our planet.Even so, an army of conscientious thinkers is scrambling to find a solution that repairs the damage done by others, a result that is sadly less common than we would like to believe.In fact, some of the policies we enthusiastically pursue to lessen or reverse these anthropogenic effects do not work at all, and seem to be aimed only at appeasing our guilty consciences.There are multiple examples of such impulsive behaviours, as unhelpful as they are well-intentioned, that demonstrate our continued failure to plan on a grand scale, and that ‘seeing the big picture’ is too often beyond our means.Is it feasible to combat the energy crisis by covering a large area of the Sahara Desert with solar panels? (Getty Images)Let me explain this with a very simple example. From time-to-time, someone suggests combating the energy crisis by covering a large area of the Sahara Desert with solar panels. The efficacy of the idea is apparently so simple that it is hard to see any drawbacks.However, doing something like this would alter the Earth’s albedo, which is the level of radiation that light surfaces (such as snow or sand) bounce back into space due to their refractive nature. The usually dark solar panels would trap more radiation, raising the average temperature of the desert. This, paradoxical as it may seem, would increase the level of rainfall in the Sahel, eventually turning the desert into a kind of orchard.However, since the planet turns out to be an interconnected ‘whole’, the butterfly effect would cause an identical but opposite effect to appear on the other side of the Earth, let’s say the Amazon, which could end up becoming a desert, trapping Brazil in everlasting droughts (something that is already beginning to be seen due to the deforestation encouraged by Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro).Story continuesRead more: Three years after the EU demanded single-use plastic ban by 2021… has it worked?But important as this issue is, another much closer to home is the epidemic of paper straws that has flooded fast-food restaurants, cafes and bars. The idea, like that of solar panels in the Sahara, appeared unimpeachable.The little plastic tubes with which we have traditionally – and quite efficaciously – sipped our drinks were ending up in the oceans, polluting the environment and causing horrific damage to beautiful and vulnerable creatures like sea turtles.What else was there to do but pile into a crusade that would involve using paper straws that turn into toilet-flavoured mush at the first sip?Let’s start, however, with the story of the turtle, as it is extremely interesting and a textbook example of the emergence of habits that apparently favour sustainability, but which, when it comes down to it, do not pass the scientific test.The myth of the environmental efficacy of today’s absorbent straws, famous for self-destructing in three seconds, started in the place where all things happen lately – on social media.In 2015, a biologist named Christine Figgener uploaded a video to Facebook that she had recorded while conducting fieldwork in Costa Rican waters for her PhD, a study on the migratory patterns of olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea).Biologist Christine Figgener uploaded a video to Facebook showing the struggle to remove a plastic straw from a turtle.In the extremely unpleasant video, Figgener and her expedition companions are seen struggling to remove a plastic object embedded in a turtle’s nostril. The video of the chelonian, which visibly suffers and bleeds during the extraction, immediately went viral and has now been watched more than 44 million times on YouTube.The social reaction to the moving scene was instantaneous. Most major fast-food corporations in the Western world banned plastic straws and replaced them with paper ones, and the movement resonated among most of our governments as well (the EU banned plastic straws earlier this year).It is impossible not to empathise with the turtle while watching the video. In fact, it is so unbearable that one tends to think that we are the cancer of the planet, and that the plastic straws thrown in the rubbish by some guy from Madrid, Vancouver or Sydney at his local burger joint will invariably end up killing a turtle in the distant tropics.Read more: How much damage is eating red meat doing to the environment?Really? Well, no, not at all. I’m afraid that our chewing of wet cellulose as we sip our gin and tonic is little more than foolishness, and I’m going to explain why.According to a study published in 2017, 95% of all plastic in the Earth’s oceans comes from only 10 rivers. Eight of them are in Asia and the other two are in Africa. Another group specialising in ocean conservation similarly estimated that most of the plastics reaching the sea come mainly from five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.I’m sure some people think that these studies have a pro-Western bias, and that the aim is to hide the problem by blaming less developed countries, but think about one thing. The straw that your child throws in the rubbish bin at the burger joint ends up with others in a bag in a container for plastic recyclingMost developed countries are developed because, among other things, they manage their waste efficiently. So even if the straws don’t end up being recycled, they will end up buried under tons of soil in a location where they are unlikely to reach the oceans.Unfortunately, the straw that Figgener and her colleagues so painfully extracted from the turtle in the video almost certainly came from an Asian country where rubbish is not managed correctly.Some 95% of all plastic in the Earth’s oceans comes from only 10 rivers. Eight of them are in Asia and the other two are in Africa. (Getty Images)At the same time, we have also identified another major problem. Most of the plastic that ends up in the oceans, forming floating islands that continue to grow in size, comes from fishing or shipping gear that ‘falls off’ merchant ships.Indeed, this is the origin of some 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is already three times the size of France. Unfortunately, until this gear breaks down into small pieces, it can cause the death of many marine creatures.We therefore have reliable information we can use as a basis for solutions that are not as far-fetched as adopting paper straws. It would be enough to create programmes in developing countries in which fishermen and seafarers would be paid for their old gear, thus discouraging the easy and destructive solution of throwing it into the sea when it is no longer of use.As for the treatment of waste in the five most polluting countries, the solution would be to provide funds to their emerging economies so that they can invest in efficient waste management systems.So easy, yet so complicated.Watch: Should we get rid of single-use plastic items?

An industry toxicologist promoting artificial turf fields has repeatedly cited her work for EPA while downplaying the risks of “forever chemicals” used to produce plastic grass blades, making contentious claims often at odds with the agency’s own findings.
Laura C. Green has often referenced her role as an EPA special government employee while advocating for artificial turf fields in New England.
In public meetings and written emails, Green has also sought to undercut concerns about the health risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS. That includes comments made at a September meeting on Nantucket, where Green asserted, “There is no reliable evidence that PFAS harms human health.”
EPA has in fact recently targeted some PFAS for regulation due to a mounting body of evidence of negative health effects. Just last month, the agency singled out a compound called PFOA as a “likely carcinogen,” in addition to noting the chemical’s links to lower immune response and other health risks (E&E News PM, Nov. 16).
When E&E News asked about Green’s statements, EPA disavowed them.
“EPA considers harmful PFAS to be an urgent public health threat facing communities across the United States,” a spokesperson said. “The agency does not support or agree with any of the statements attributed to Ms. Green that you cited in your questions.”
EPA also said Green “has not ever” worked on PFAS issues for the agency. Rather, she has assisted with peer reviews conducted by the agency’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel. Green “was not conducting work” for those panels when she made her comments about PFAS to New England communities this fall, the agency said.
Just days after its response to E&E News, EPA ethics officials emailed Green to “clarify” how she references her work for the agency in public settings.
The term “special government employee” refers to a temporary service in which workers are recruited for their expertise to serve as consultants or on advisory committees, but cannot work more than 130 days of the year for the government.
In the email, a copy of which was obtained by E&E News, EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Deputy Ethics Official Hayley Hughes told Green that if she mentioned her EPA work at public meetings, she had to clarify she was only speaking in her personal capacity and not representing the agency.
Hughes also wrote that Green “may not” use her work for EPA “to bolster your personal presentation or specific points contained in any remarks, or imply that the EPA or the federal government endorses your personal views.”
Green did not respond to questions from E&E News about her role with EPA or the agency’s correspondence with her about it. However, she said she stood by her comments that there is no reliable evidence that PFAS harms human health. That statement, she said, is “not inconsistent” with EPA’s finding that PFOA is a likely human carcinogen. Green said the agency’s declaration only “means that there is reliable evidence in rats and mice,” though such studies are routinely used to consider chemicals’ health impacts.
She also said that if there was evidence that PFAS harmed humans, specifically, EPA would have already regulated them in drinking water.
“Why do you think they never came up with drinking water standards?” she said.
Green herself has pushed back on proposed standards for multiple PFAS at the state level. In comments to Massachusetts and Wisconsin regulators, she and colleague Edmund Crouch countered findings related to PFOA and PFOS specifically and argued against the standards being recommended.
Green, a board-certified toxicologist, holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her focus was nutrition, according to her resume. That document also shows how extensively she has worked with industry, dating back decades.
Meanwhile, Green has often made controversial statements about the health of workers at DuPont and 3M who were exposed to PFAS.
Surveys of workers at PFAS manufacturing plants owned by DuPont and 3M exposed to PFOA have shown increased incidents of liver damage and testicular cancer for decades. But Green told attendees of the September School Committee meeting on Nantucket that workers who manufacture PFAS for the two companies “seem to be fine.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that workers who are up to their eyeballs in this stuff are actually harmed by it,” Green said.
She has repeated those assertions in writing.
In emails to Nantucket resident Ayesha Khan, whose firefighter husband blames his testicular cancer on PFAS exposure at work, Green compared levels in firefighters’ blood to those found in workers at PFAS manufacturing plants. She again repeated that workers “who were literally up to their elbows in these materials … do not appear to be at excess risk of cancer.”
Green emailed Khan several more times, blaming her husband’s diagnosis on other chemicals firefighters are exposed to, and sending her studies about testicular cancer survival rates.
“It was shocking,” Khan said.
In another email to Emma Green-Beach, director and biologist of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, who is also now on the Oak Bluffs, Mass., select board, Green cited the now-infamous environmental crisis in West Virginia, where PFOA contamination led to the largest PFAS human health study to date. Popularized in the movie “Dark Waters,” the contamination was discovered after a local farmer drew attention to his tumorous, dead cows.
In her email, Green theorized without evidence that the cows in question were likely stricken, not by PFAS exposure, but by molybdenum-based catalysts used in the manufacturing of Teflon products.

Turf wars
Despite making demonstrably false statements about PFAS, Green continues to consult on issues related to multimillion-dollar artificial turf fields at multiple towns in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, whose group has been tracking Green’s work, said her repeated assertion that she works for EPA is alarming because of the misinformation she spreads about the safety of PFAS.
“She has been at this for a while, mixing her position as a special government employee with her private work, and that is concerning,” he said.
Public officials in multiple towns that have hired Green did not respond to requests for comment. Nantucket Public Schools officials had agreed to speak with E&E News about the turf fields yesterday morning but canceled the virtual meeting at the last minute without giving a reason. E&E News later learned that the officials found out about EPA’s emails to Green shortly before the scheduled meeting. The officials did not respond to subsequent emails posing questions.
But Nantucket project architect Richard Webb has told the School Committee that he is “aware of the PFAS concerns and considerations” and that the products would be tested for PFAS regulated in Massachusetts drinking water, including PFOA.
In his presentation, Webb said using synthetic turf for the $17.5 million project is necessary because, in the turf’s 12- to 15-year life span, it would require less maintenance than grass fields and would help increase participation in school sports.
Notably, the chemicals used in artificial turf fields are not the same compounds EPA is currently considering regulating.
PFAS are a family of chemicals containing thousands of compounds, many of which are not yet well researched or understood. The most studied chemicals are PFOA and PFOS, which have been linked to kidney and liver problems, among other issues. Those compounds are both toxic to humans at very low levels and stay in human bodies for an extended period of time, making them particularly concerning to public health experts.
As more research accumulates about other compounds, some have been found to have similar health effects as PFOA and PFOS, prompting advocates to call on EPA to regulate all PFAS as a class, rather than individually.
PFAS are used to manufacture turf fields, specifically by preventing plastic blades of grass from sticking to equipment when they are shaped. Green has said publicly that the specific compounds PVDF and PVDF-HFP are used in this process but told E&E News it was only the latter.
As with many PFAS, health effects from PVDF and PVDF-HFP are not widely documented. In public presentations and conversations with E&E News, Green has said PVDF-HFP is an “inert polymer” and does not rub off on athletes, break down in the environment or break down into other types of PFAS.
But one October 2020 study examining fluoropolymers, including PVDF, stated that while those compounds are often deemed “polymers of low concern,” many questions remain about their environmental impacts and health implications. More recent research has shown PVDF has the potential to break down in the presence of prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays — which could be a concern for turf fields exposed to the elements. It is unclear whether the same is true of PVDF-HFP.
Kristen Mello, a trained chemist and community activist from Westfield, Mass., who has elevated PFAS levels in her blood, said the studies show that PVDF does break down in sunlight.
“[Green] is saying that the PFAS they use is insoluble and can’t come off in water, and the question we are left with is, what does it come off in?” she said. “Once it is exposed to sunlight, the backbone of the compound is broken down into pieces that can more readily be soluble in water.”
Asked about this research, Green stood by her previous comments and told E&E News that PVDF-HFP is a stable compound that does not dissolve in water. Green also suggested that because the chemical is used in surgical sutures and medical devices that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it is safe to use on synthetic fields. When E&E News reporters pointed out that sutures on a body would not be subjected to the same conditions as an athletic field, Green replied, “What you are saying makes no sense to me.”
“That’s just not a thing, my friend,” she said.
Jamie DeWitt, a toxicologist with East Carolina University who studies PFAS and polymers, said concerns about how wear and tear might affect the chemicals’ ability to escape artificial turf fields and contaminate athletes or nearby water supplies are legitimate.
“If there is residual PFAS on the turf grass product, and then across time there is sunlight, and heat from the sunlight, and rain and microbes and physical activity, it seems perfectly reasonable and logical,” she said, “that those residual PFAS will slowly disincorporate from the turf and reincorporate either in the water, in the soil or on the bodies of the people using the turf.”

‘There is nothing to see here’
On Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, much of the opposition to artificial turf fields stems from concerns about possible contamination of their sole-source aquifers. The islands already have preexisting PFAS contamination, and Nantucket is part of a class-action lawsuit against firefighting foam manufacturers.
Ewell Hopkins, chair of the Oak Bluffs Planning Board on Martha’s Vineyard currently reviewing permit applications for the fields, worries Green’s experience with EPA helps community members supporting the fields ignore groundwater fears.
“Bringing in a smooth-talking, seemingly credentialed person saying, ‘There is nothing to see here,’ the people who want to feel good about supporting the field have something to stand on,” he said.
Hopkins added that his board’s review process is ongoing and far from over. During a meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., Green alluded to $30,000 for testing for “the synthetic turf being used in Martha’s Vineyard.” At the meeting, Green said the results were not of concern to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which has already approved the project, but did not mention that Oak Bluffs regulators continue to scrutinize those results.
The comments concerned Hopkins, who has since written to Portsmouth’s mayor over the matter. He is worried that Green is trying to capitalize on Martha’s Vineyard’s reputation in order to convince other communities not to scrutinize turf fields.
“Everyone knows Martha’s Vineyard as the playground of presidents,” he said, adding, “The last thing I want is for people in other communities with less resources to think that if it was good enough for the Vineyard, who are we to question it for our students.”
Nantucket Fire Department Deputy Chief Sean Mitchell shared similar fears. Two years ago, he learned that protective uniforms meant to keep firefighters safe from burns and toxic chemicals actually contain PFAS. For the past 18 months, he has written to turnout gear manufacturers inquiring about safety concerns only to encounter similar misinformation (Greenwire, Feb. 17).
This winter, he sent an email to Nantucket school officials criticizing them for using taxpayer money to hire Green “to gaslight” the community.
“We have come to expect this from industry-funded scientists,” Mitchell wrote. “What we don’t expect is that our own school system would be the reason she’s here in our community, spreading her misinformation.”
Reporter Kevin Bogardus contributed.

It’s easy to feel despondent about the state of the global environment in 2021. More than a million species are at risk of extinction, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continue to increase, and the planet was rocked by a series of climate change-fueled extreme weather events. Meanwhile, the world continues to grapple with a deadly pandemic that seems like it will never end.But, as the year draws to a close, there are reasons to feel cautiously optimistic about areas in which the environment scored victories in 2021.It’s important to note that even these promising developments involve pledges that may yet be watered down, misleading, or altogether unfulfilled. Still, there are signs of success on this long, difficult road. Here are five reasons to be hopeful.1. Pushback on fossil fuelsCoal is sold on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which then pollutes the air when burned. Countries at November’s Glasgow UN Climate Conference pledged to reduce the amount of coal they produced.Photograph by Matthieu Paley, Nat Geo Image CollectionPlease be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Delayed by a year as a result of COVID-19, November’s COP26—the United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Glasgow—welcomed the world’s second-largest fossil-fuel emitter, the United States, back to the negotiating table after four years of inaction on climate change. By the summit’s end, the U.S. and China had made a surprise joint declaration to work together on meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.While the level of ambition at Glasgow faced plenty of criticism, particularly in terms of protecting developing countries from climate impacts and supporting their transitions to clean energy systems, the goal of keeping warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C) is arguably more achievable now. Notably, countries agreed to “phase down” their coal use—which fell short of an initial draft to “phase out” coal—and more than a hundred countries agreed to cut their methane emissions 30 percent by 2030.Away from Glasgow, the Biden administration canceled the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, though it is also opening up millions of acres to oil and gas exploration. The administration set a goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and announced its intention to reduce solar energy costs 60 percent over the next decade; the two declarations are part of a plan to have the U.S. powered by a clean grid by 2035. In addition, President Joe Biden in August mandated that by 2030, half of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. be electric.Globally, renewable energy use in 2021 is expected to increase by 8 percent, the fastest year-on-year-growth since the 1970s, while in the U.S., a new report found that it had nearly quadrupled over the last decade.In the Netherlands, a court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its carbon emissions by 45 percent relative to 2019 levels by 2030, a result one lawyer described as a “turning point in history.”2. Progress on plasticSeveral U.S. states passed legislation in 2021 to reduce the amount of plastic entering the environment; some states send their plastic waste to countries such as the Philippines, pictured here. The U.S. is the biggest plastic polluter in the world.Photograph by Randy Olson, Nat Geo Image CollectionPlease be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.The last 12 months saw a raft of legislation to reduce growing plastic pollution. In Washington State, Governor Jay Inslee signed a law that bans polystyrene products, such as foam coolers and packing peanuts; requires that customers must request single-use utensils, straws, cup lids, and condiments; and mandates minimum post-consumer recycled content in a number of plastic bottles and jugs, including those for personal care products and household cleaning.California passed landmark bills that, among other things, prohibit manufacturers from placing the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol or the word recyclable on items that aren’t actually recyclable; forbid mixed plastic waste exports to other countries being counted as “recycled,” just so that local governments can claim to comply with state laws; require products labeled as compostable to break down in real-life conditions; and ban the use of extremely long-lasting PFAs, known as forever chemicals, in children’s products.Such actions may be reflected federally following the introduction of the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act; among other things, the proposal by two U.S. lawmakers would ban some single-use plastic products and pause permits of new plastics manufacturing plants.In November, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the U.S. would back a global treaty to tackle plastic pollution; the Trump administration opposed it. U.S. support is critical, given that the nation is the world’s largest contributor to plastic waste, as revealed in a congressionally mandated report released in December. The treaty now seems certain to move forward, and the United Nations is scheduled to convene in Nairobi in February to begin formal negotiations.In December, the National Academies of Sciences urged the U.S., which generates more plastic waste than all the European Union states combined, to develop a strategy to reduce it, including a national cap on virgin plastic production.3. Protection of forestsSome local governments in Indonesia are yanking palm oil permits from companies seeking to build plantations in forest.Photograph by Pascal Maitre, Nat Geo Image CollectionPlease be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.By far the biggest news in forest conservation was the pledge at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow to end deforestation by 2030; the commitment includes a pledge to provide $12 billion in funding to “help unleash the potential of forests and sustainable land use.” However, the promise was met with widespread skepticism, not least because deforestation rates actually increased following a 2014 agreement with the same goal.However, 2021 did see a number of on-the-ground victories. In October, President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo called for an audit of its vast forest concessions and the suspension of all “questionable contracts” until the audit is done. A few weeks later, the government retreated from a plan to lift a 19-year-old moratorium on the granting of new logging licenses in the Congo Basin Forest. “We don’t want any more contracts with partners who came to savagely cut our forests; we will retire these types of contracts,” said Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba. Environmental groups remain wary, and Greenpeace is calling for the DRC moratorium to be made permanent.The government of the Indonesian province of West Papua revoked permits for 12 palm oil contracts covering more than 660,000 acres (an area twice the size of Los Angeles), three-fifths of which remains forested. Environmental and Indigenous rights groups are urging the government to go further and recognize the rights of Native peoples in those areas to manage the forests themselves. Three of the 12 contract holders continue to fight the government’s decision in court.And Ecuador’s highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest would harm its biodiversity and violate the rights of nature, which are enshrined in the Ecuadorian constitution. The ruling means that mining concessions, and environmental and water permits in the forest, must be cancelled.4. Restoration of habitatsA male sage grouse in Wyoming. This year, a court overturned a Trump administration decision that impacted the habitat of the sage grouse. Photograph by Charlie Hamilton James, Nat Geo Image CollectionPlease be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.The Biden administration spent part of its first year restoring habitat protections that had been rolled back by its predecessor. Perhaps the most prominent was the re-establishment of full protection for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in southern Utah, as well as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off New England.The administration restored protection to more than 3 million acres of old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest that is critical habitat for the northern spotted owl. It also reversed an effort to weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty that the Trump White House set in motion in its last few days in office. Meanwhile, a court overturned a Trump administration decision to strip protections from 10 million acres, mostly in Nevada and Idaho, to allow mining in critical habitat for greater sage-grouse.In May, the Biden administration unveiled its America the Beautiful initiative, which among other things established the first-ever national conservation goal: conserving 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. It reflects a United Nations aim to protect the same percentage of land and ocean, an objective to which more than 100 nations committed in September.In November, Colombia pledged to protect 30 percent of its land by 2022. And Panama took major steps toward the same goal by tripling the size of its Cordillera de Coiba Marine Protected Area. Also in November, Portugal established the largest fully protected marine reserve in Europe.5. Support for wildlifePopulations of giant pandas have recovered enough for China to remove the bears from the endangered species list. Photograph by Ami Vitale, Nat Geo Image CollectionPlease be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Populations of some of the world’s most iconic species are showing some improvement as a result of protective measures. In July, China announced that it no longer considers the giant panda, the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund, to be endangered, upgrading its status to vulnerable. Just over 1,800 pandas remain in the wild, an improvement over the 1,100 thought to live in the wild as recently as 2000. Meanwhile, China announced the creation of the Giant Panda National Park, part of a system of new parks that will cover an area nearly the size of the United Kingdom.  The parks are designed to protect native species such as the Northeast China tiger, Siberian leopard, and the Hainan black-crested gibbon.Humpback whales, whose haunting songs helped build support for the “Save the Whales” campaign that ushered in the modern environmental movement, are increasing in number in many parts of their range, including off Australia (where the government is considering removing them from the country’s threatened list) and in their South Atlantic feeding grounds. That said, the number of calves in the Northwest Atlantic population has declined over the last 15 years.Several species of tuna are no longer heading toward extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Two bluefin species, a yellowfin, and an albacore are no longer classified as critically endangered or have moved off the leading international list of endangered species entirely, the result of decades of efforts to limit the impacts of commercial fishing.Three thousand years after the species was eliminated everywhere except its eponymous island, seven Tasmanian devils were born in a reserve in mainland Australia. Scientists hope that if the marsupials one day again become established on the mainland, they could play a vital role in controlling invasive species.And in the U.K., a government report concluded that lobsters, crabs, and octopuses are sentient beings that feel pain, and as a result should be granted protection under the country’s draft Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill.