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This article is part of Outside Run’s complete 2023 Boston Marathon race coverage.
The Boston Marathon is making major strides when it comes to sustainability. As one of the world’s premier marathons, it’s working hard to implement systems and educate participants about event sustainability. And while running might not immediately seem like it has an enormous carbon footprint, the impact adds up.
Just getting to the start line produces emissions. More than three-quarters of race participants travel from outside of New England, producing .24 pounds of CO2 per mile of air travel. The marathon’s official flight partner, JetBlue, offers an option for travelers to offset its carbon emissions. Then, the buses that transport athletes 26 miles from Boston Common to the startline in Hopkinton contribute another 11.2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions (though mass transit, like buses, has less impact than personal vehicles). A major challenge presented in shrinking the marathon’s footprint is the sheer size of the event, with more than 30,000 runners and half a million spectators along a course.
“The biggest issue is definitely the scale of the marathon, and the fact that it happens so quickly over just one day. We have a limited window to get things set up and make sure everything’s going according to plan,” says Will Pollard, operations manager at the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.), which owns and operates the race. “The fact that our footprint spans over 26 miles creates a lot of logistical elements that require a lot of planning to figure out.”
The B.A.A. is also working on educational initiatives for participants, including athlete newsletters and a booth at the expo that will spotlight the B.A.A.’s successes and challenges in making the marathon more environmentally friendly.
“There is always room for improvement! We evaluate each operational area post-event to see what worked well and what could use tweaking,” says Pollard. “I’m excited to see what we learn after this year about where we want to take the program next.”
Waste Diversion
Physical waste presents a major challenge for event organizers. In 2017, the marathon produced 62,000 disposable water bottles, 1.4 million water cups, and 171,380 paper brochures. While race foods, like bananas and orange slices, are compostable, athletes often toss food and trash on the ground, which results in more manpower needed to sweep the course, potentially tainted waste streams, and biodegradable waste ending up in landfills.
In recent years, 80 percent of waste from the Boston course has been diverted into sustainable streams such as recycling or compost. The B.A.A. has achieved this by placing volunteer-run waste stations in high-traffic areas of the course so that athletes and spectators can sustainably dispose of things, rather than throwing everything in the trash.
“Someone will bring an item that they need to throw away, then the volunteer will sort it into the correct stream: recycling, compost, or landfill,” says Pollard. “This gets everything organized before being hauled away by our trash and recycling partner.”
Sorting things effectively is critical for making sure materials can be composted or recycled, since “tainted” streams (like recycling bins that contain trash products) can’t be recycled or composted.
In 2022, the B.A.A. introduced compostable cups along the course.
RELATED: 8 Running Brands That Actually Give a Damn About The Planet
“We have 24 hydration stations set up to service all 30,000 athletes; that’s a lot of material that has previously been collected and sent to the landfill,” says Pollard. Now, all Gatorade and Poland Spring cups are made of compostable materials. The cups are collected in compostable bags and transported to a large, industrial compost facility. Last year, over 6.5 tons of cups were composted (roughly the equivalent of an adult African Elephant).
Runners typically bring extra layers to Hopkinton on race morning so they can stay warm before the start. Volunteers will collect discarded hats, gloves, jackets, and shirts from the Athletes’ Village area all the way to the Ashland town line. Last year, 21 tons of clothing were collected at the start line and donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Sustainable Jacket
Event organizers aren’t just working to redirect used clothing back into circulation; they’re also ensuring that new garments are more sustainable and use more recycled materials. This year’s Boston Marathon Celebration Jacket contains 70 percent recycled content. This is a substantial move, as adidas provides volunteer jackets to more than 10,000 volunteers and official participant shirts to 18,000 men and 14,950 women.
“We’re creating products with recycled materials, making products to be remade, and developing products made with nature,” says Jennifer Thomas, Vice President of Global Sports Marketing at adidas. “Overall, the Boston Marathon articles reflect our overall ambition to use sustainable materials in 9 out of 10 products with every article in this collection using either recycled polyester or cotton that is sourced through our partnership with Better Cotton.”
This year’s Boston finisher’s jacket contains yarn that’s 50 percent Parley Ocean Plastic, which is plastic from islands, beaches, coastal communities, and shorelines that is upcycled into polyester fibers. According to Chris Lotsbom, Director of Communications at the B.A.A., the jacket colors reference the intersection of athletics and the environment, “by pairing natural tones inspired by sand and stones as a twist on the traditional blue and yellow colors of the Boston Marathon.”
Adidas is also partnering with the B.A.A. to collect and recycle water bottles from race weekend and turn them into park benches, in addition to providing a race bag for all participants that is sustainable and has a tag that reads: “This bag is made of 100 percent recycled polyethylene, sparing unnecessary natural resources + energy consumption. 91 percent of plastic products end up in a landfill despite being sturdy enough to give a second life,” to help educate participants about textile production and recycling. Adidas will also have a booth at the expo that will prominently feature the brand’s sustainability efforts and highlight a timeline of what adidas has done in sustainability, and what additional actions they hope to take to meet ambitious sustainability goals.
The B.A.A. is learning as it goes, but optimistic that it can keep finessing systems and incorporating learnings from previous years to limit the event’s environmental impact.
According to the Council for Responsible Sport, environmentally responsible races can recycle everything from cardboard to aluminum and glass. The Council certifies and lists events that meet certain criteria established by the Council, but the Boston Marathon has yet to achieve this standard, though they have been working with Athletes for a Fit Planet to establish best practices.
“We produce year-over-year sustainability reports which summarize our program post-race. These reports include weight data from the haulers and calculate our diversion rates. It’s important that we’re seeing year-over-year improvements,” says Pollard. “We also will use these reports to target new areas to target the following year.”
Read Outside‘s complete coverage of the 2023 Boston Marathon.

ExxonMobil just launched one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America – but environmental advocates say the technology is a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce plastic production.On the surface, the latest addition to ExxonMobil’s giant petrochemical refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, sounds like it could be a good thing: An “advanced recycling” facility capable of breaking down 36,000 metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastic each year. But plastic waste advocates warn that plants like it do little actual recycling, and instead generate hazardous pollutants while providing cover for oil giants to keep producing millions of tons of new plastic products each year.The facility, which began large-scale operations in December of last year, is one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America. Chemical recycling works by breaking down plastic polymers into small molecules in order to make new plastics, synthetic fuels and other products. Companies like ExxonMobil have rebranded the technology as “advanced recycling” and are now touting it as the latest hi-tech fix to address the plastic crisis, as traditional, mechanical recycling has failed to slow the tide of plastic piling up in landfills and the ocean.ExxonMobil also says it’s planning to build chemical recycling plants at “many of its other manufacturing sites around the world”. Though it hasn’t committed specific dollar amounts to building new plants, the company is currently assessing locations in Louisiana, Illinois, Belgium, Singapore and elsewhere.By the end of 2026, the oil giant hopes to have enough chemical recycling capacity to process roughly 450,000 metric tons of plastic each year.But that’s a drop in the bucket compared with how much plastic ExxonMobil creates.In 2021 alone, ExxonMobil churned out 6m tons of new single-use plastic, more than any other petrochemical company, according to a recent report by the philanthropic Minderoo Foundation. What’s more, recent research has shown that chemical recycling is worse for the environment than mechanical recycling in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and water use, and in some cases, worse than virgin plastic production. The process ExxonMobil’s Baytown plant uses, called pyrolysis, is often so inefficient that many environmental advocates say it should not be called recycling at all.Conventional mechanical recycling involves sorting different types of plastic into individual streams that are washed, shredded and melted down to make new products. During this process, the chemical makeup of the plastic remains unchanged, although contaminants can find their way in during the melting and cutting process and the end products have a weaker physical structure.Chemical recycling relies on high heat, pressure or chemical catalysts like enzymes to break down plastic into its molecular building blocks. Those building blocks can then be used to make new products – including new plastics with the same physical structure as the original material.The most commercially widespread chemical recycling technology today is pyrolysis, according to Taylor Uekert, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who studies plastic recycling.Pyrolysis has significant environmental impacts. Plants that use it require large amounts of energy to operate: Uekert found that recycling a kilogram of high-density polyethylene plastic using pyrolysis requires nearly seven times the amount of energy needed to make a kilogram of virgin plastic. Typically, that energy comes from burning fossil fuels, which creates air pollution and planet-heating carbon emissions.Pyrolysis operations can also consume large volumes of water, and they often generate hazardous waste. Overall, Uekert’s research found that the environmental impact of making recycled plastics with pyrolysis is 10 to 100 times greater than virgin plastic production.In a pyrolysis plant, plastic is put in a reactor and subjected to high temperatures (ranging from 300 to 900C) and pressures in the absence of oxygen. This treatment transforms plastic into a synthetic form of crude oil which can be used as a replacement for fossil fuels or to create new plastics.While pyrolysis is able to handle more types of plastic waste than some other chemical recycling technologies, Uekert said it is not typically considered “closed loop” recycling because the fuel it generates is often burned for energy – meaning it can’t be recycled again and again. Although pyrolysis is not the same as incineration, in which waste is burned in the presence of oxygen, environmental advocates often liken pyrolysis to incineration since the end products tend to go up in smoke one way or the other.Chemical recycling “is a way for the industry to continue to expand its plastic production and assuage people’s concerns about plastic waste”, said Veena Singla, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who has analyzed chemical recycling facilities around the US. “They’re trying to put a pretty bow on it.”ExxonMobil’s Baytown recycling plant uses the firm’s proprietary “Exxtend” technology, a pyrolysis-based approach, according to company statements. Reached for comment, an ExxonMobil spokesperson, Julie King, told the Guardian that this process “complements traditional mechanical recycling” by turning hard-to-recycle plastics into raw materials which can be used to make new plastics for food packaging, medical equipment and personal hygiene products.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKing declined to respond to criticisms about the negative environmental impacts of pyrolysis or answer questions about how much pollution the Baytown recycling plant generates. She also did not confirm the exact name or location of the plant: when asked for any identifying information that could be used to look up its state and federal permits, King simply said that ExxonMobil reports emissions to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state of Texas in a “consistent and timely manner in accordance with all laws, regulations and permits”. King also offered that a third-party analysis by the environmental consulting firm Sphera found that every ton of plastic waste fed through ExxonMobil’s chemical recycling process generates 19 to 49% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than processing the same amount of crude-based feedstocks. (ExxonMobil did not share a copy of a report, and Sphera didn’t answer emails.)She also declined to say how much of the plastic waste fed into the plant would be used to make recycled plastic versus synthetic fuel. An internal analysis shared with the Guardian by the Minderoo Foundation found that if ExxonMobil’s Baytown plant had yields typical of pyrolysis plants, only 23% of the fuel it generates would be used to produce new plastics. The rest would go to other non-plastic applications, like fuel for transportation.Chemical recycling is “deflecting attention away from what we need, which is reducing single-use plastics and a global treaty on plastic waste”, said Phaedra Pezzullo, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder who has a book forthcoming on plastics and environmental justice.In an undercover investigation in 2021, Unearthed caught the ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy on video explaining how the firm uses recycling – including the Baytown plant – to shift the conversation around how to deal with plastic away from reducing consumption. (ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, later said that McCoy’s comments “in no way represent the company’s position on a variety of issues”, and the oil company has since parted ways with McCoy.)As the petrochemical industry forges ahead with chemical recycling, the same low-income communities and communities of color that bear the burden of plastic manufacturing are seeing these plants pop up in their backyards.Of the eight chemical recycling facilities operating in the US in 2021, six are located in disproportionately Black and brown communities, according to a report by Singla. Five are in areas with a large number of households living on less than $25,000 a year.The Baytown plant wasn’t included in Singla’s analysis, which only included facilities for which data had been reported to the EPA or state permits were available as of August 2021. But the city, already a hub of petrochemical production, fits the pattern she identified: nearly 20% of its predominantly white, working-class residents live in poverty, with a per-capita income of just $25,000.ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex – which includes the third largest oil refinery in the US and a plant that manufactures 2.3m metric tons of plastic a year – is a major contributor to regional air and water pollution. It also has a long history of emitting chemicals above its permit limits, including the carcinogenic compound benzene. In recent years, ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex has been the site of fires and explosions that have injured workers and triggered shelter-in-place orders for nearby residents.“Exxon has a terrible track record of polluting the Baytown community,” Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, told the Guardian. “This false ‘chemical recycling’ will only produce more toxic misery for Baytown.”

East Palestine isn’t alone: Communities around the country grapple with toxic chemical exposure | The Hill Skip to content A view of the scene on Feb. 24, 2023, as the cleanup continues at the site of of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment that happened on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio. (AP Photo/Matt Freed) …

Continue reading “East Palestine isn’t alone: Communities around the country grapple with toxic chemical exposure”

Air Date: Week of April 7, 2023

ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge Refinery along Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” (Photo: Jim Bowen, Flickr CC BY 2.0)
The Black residents of the heavily industrialized corridor along the Mississippi known as “Cancer Alley” have filed a civil rights and religious liberty lawsuit against the parish council that has given a green light to these polluting facilities for decades. Monique Harden of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice joins Host Steve Curwood to explain the history of environmental racism and resistance in “Cancer Alley.”

For decades, a sprawling plastics facility on the James River has been the crown jewel of Hopewell’s industrial hub.Under different names, including Honeywell and Allied Chemicals, the plant is part of the reason Hopewell earned its moniker as “the chemical capital of the South.”It’s currently owned by Parsippany, New Jersey-based AdvanSix and is a descendent of the company responsible for the 1975 Kepone disaster, which shut down fishing in the James for years.Regulatory filings reviewed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch indicate that the plant has been flagged 66 times in the past eight years for violations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, releasing toxic chemicals into Hopewell’s air, as well as into the James River.

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Hundreds of documents from Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality and the federal EPA offer a window into how one of area’s largest factories breaks environmental law, according to the agencies. 

The AdvanSix plant is seen on Thursday, March 16, 2023,in Hopewell, Virginia.

SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH

Since 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality have had the company on their radar. According to the EPA, AdvanSix violated the federal Clean Air Act, the country’s primary air quality law, every month over the past two years.The Hopewell factory is one of the world’s largest production sites for caprolactam, a chemical used to make a strain of nylon known as Nylon 6. The product shows up in seatbelts, tires, clothing and rugs.The plant sits at the southern end of the small city, within a mile of more than 900 residences, including public housing projects and a more affluent stretch of the neighborhood known as City Point. It commands about a half-mile of real estate overlooking the James River.’Patterns of noncompliance’On March 29, 2022, the plant released a mist containing 7.23 tons of sulfuric acid, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers toxic even in small amounts. The leak came from equipment that inspectors had asked the company to repair years before, records show.On May 6, regulators wrote to the plant’s manager to discuss more than 390 tons of sulfur dioxide that the company had released over 10 years, records show. Each year, their machinery had blown past its sulfur dioxide limitation, releasing more than 113 times the limit allowed by the state, they said.Sulfur dioxide is a harmful gas tracked by the EPA. The gas can damage the human respiratory system, particularly for children or people with asthma. The EPA says it’s also harmful to trees, contributing to acid rain. AdvanSix said this release was still within the limit of their overall permit.

The AdvanSix plant in Hopewell is shown in March 2018. The manufacturing center has been repeatedly cited by regulators, state and federal documents show. 

DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/TIMES-DISPATCH

Between 2015 and 2016, AdvanSix released at least 5 excess tons of a gas called phenol. The company told regulators about the release on Jan. 26, 2018, nearly two years later, filings show. Phenol can cause gastrointestinal damage, cardiovascular disease after long-exposures, and respiratory and skin damage at high levels of exposure, according to the CDC.The factory has also been polluting directly into the river, the reports show. EPA said the agency had documented “numerous and significant exceedances of stormwater benchmarks.” The state also flagged the release of millions of gallons of cooling water into the James.Chemical runoff, particularly nitrogen runoff, creates dead-zones in the watershed around Hopewell. Dead-zones indirectly kill life in the river. Scientists who study the bay say dead-zones are a known problem in the Hopewell area, where the river widens to the size of a lake.The Times-Dispatch has published a full link to the violations at richmond.com. 

Luca Powell

Advansix says most violations were promptly corrected, and said that a majority of regulators findings were actually self-reported by the company.“At AdvanSix, we are committed to being good partners and neighbors in the communities in which we operate,” said Janeen Lawlor, a spokesperson for the company. “This commitment includes a strong focus on ensuring responsible environmental stewardship and strict compliance with all regulatory requirements.”Lawlor said the company has spent millions of dollars upgrading the Hopewell plant. AdvanSix said it is committed to transparency and engaging with regulators, and that all of the water compliance issues had been addressed. State regulators offered a different perspective. Virginia Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Aaron Proctor described the plant as having “patterns of noncompliance” dating back as far as 1990, when the facility was owned by Honeywell.In 2013, the VDEQ and the EPA brought Honeywell to the table to pay $3 million in damages for releases of benzene, a toxic gas, as well as “failing to control nitrous oxide and particulate matter emissions.”Two years later, Honeywell was hit with another consent order and made to pay $300,000 in civil charges. This time, the company had spilled a cocktail of lethal chemicals into the James River, killing more than 2,000 fish.And in each subsequent year since then — except 2020 — the plant’s managers have received notices from regulators about gas leaks, spills, monitoring failures, and reporting issues – first when it was owned by Honeywell, and then continuing into its current ownership by AdvanSix.The agency is slowly building a case to make the plastic producer comply with environmental rules. The state has the authority to file an injunction or fine the company. To do either, all that state lawyers need to prove is the potential for harm, according to a VDEQ manager familiar with AdvanSix’s case.Eric Schaeffer, who served as head of enforcement at the federal EPA under President Bill Clinton, reviewed the factory’s regulatory records. Schaeffer now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington, D.C-based nonprofit group that investigates pollution at U.S. plants.Schaeffer said that he was surprised regulators hadn’t done more to penalize AdvanSix. The company was fined $50,000 in 2022 for its most recent offense. That same year, the AdvanSix announced $171 million in income, a slice of which the company used to perform stock buybacks.

Luca Powell

“That’s not gonna do it. It’s just not going to do it,” said Schaeffer. “Especially when you have a repeat situation like this one. When the penalties are too small, I almost think of them as fees. It’s not enough to even qualify as a penalty.”Schaeffer described the releases as “significant violations.”“Benzene is a class A carcinogen, and at pretty low levels of exposure. Phenol’s bad news. And sulfur dioxide reacts with ammonia to make fine particles, which are nasty and have a very high public health price,” Schaeffer said.’Cleaner air to breathe, pure water to drink’The Hopewell plant is one of five mega-facilities in the Prince George County community, where manufacturing has been an economic staple of generations. Pollutants released from the plant create potential health hazards in a community with one of the highest rates of poverty in Virginia. Hopewell’s life expectancy is five years lower than the state average. Its cancer mortality rate is nearly double the state average, and its rates of hospitalization for asthma stand at three times the Virginia norm, according to state data.The city’s public health district said the Hopewell health trends are “concerning,” but hesitated to draw any clear links.“Life expectancy rates can’t be attributable to any single determinant,” said Julie Thacker, population health manager for the Crater Health District. Thacker said air quality was among a number of other factors, including access to healthcare and rates of poverty.Schaeffer says those warning signs aren’t an excuse, although they are a common refrain he heard in his time at the EPA.AdvanSix statement”As an American Chemistry Council Responsible Care company with all sites RC14001 certified, we have a sharp focus on the safety and sustainability of our operations. We actively engage with local officials, regulatory agencies and our communities to help safeguard the environment and innovate to make products and processes safer. We are dedicated to proactively identifying – and self-reporting – opportunities for improvement. Our local community can be assured that the safety, health and well-being of our local community is our top priority.” Janeen Lawlor, AdvanSix spokesperson“If there are a lot of other (health) factors, the last thing you want is a bunch of chemicals in the air,” Schaeffer said.Some of the houses nearest to AdvanSix include Hopewell’s City Point, a higher-end suburban neighborhood near Waterfront park, where Gen. Ulysses Grant’s Civil War headquarters still stand.Even closer to the plants are the Davisville and Bland houses — a predominantly Black federal housing project less than a mile from AdvanSix’s smokestacks.Mike Harris, a Hopewell City Council member, lives in the Davisville neighborhood. His house faces directly onto the plant.

Mike Harris, Hopewell city councilman for Ward 2.

“At night is when the light show begins,” said Harris, referencing the spouts of smoke and flame that make a dramatic painting against the night sky. He can watch the performance from his window.Harris is a new face in Hopewell City government, but grew up in the neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s. He ran to represent the Davisville ward — Ward 2 — by advocating for the basics. “Cleaner air to breathe, pure water to drink,” reads one of his campaign posters.Five years ago, Harris said, the city and federal HUD partners had planned to tear down the Davisville project, citing hazardous health conditions from nearby industry. The plan fell apart as resistance to being relocated and zoning ordinances created hurdles.Harris, 73, said the City Council had never been told about any leaks from the plant. After his election in November, Harris was invited to lunch by an AdvanSix lobbyist, he said. About the AdvanSix plantTHE FACTORY  AdvanSix is a plastics producer in Hopewell, Virginia. It manufactures nylon, which is used in rugs, tires, and seatbelts.  The massive complex of buildings covers about 200 acres.  THE COMPANY  AdvanSix, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, is a publicly traded company with reported a net income of $172 million in fiscal year 2022.  The company has plants in Frankford, Pennsylvania; Bucks, Alabama; and Portsmouth, Chesterfield and Hopewell. HOPEWELL PLANT  The company is under scrutiny by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The violations include: Illegal release of over 390 tons of sulfur dioxide, a hazardous air pollutant.Illegal release of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and benzene into Hopewell’s ambient air.Misreporting nitrogen levels of runoff into the James River.Harris said the company lobbyist never mentioned the violations, but did bring up an $8 million special tax that the company pays to the city.“They never said anything to us about these violations,” said Harris. “And when I told my peers on the City Council, they said, ‘Michael, what are we going to do about it?’”AdvanSix declined to make local plant managers available for an interview.The town’s mayor, John Partin, is a former AdvanSix employee. Partin says they’ve pushed the company to do more by raising taxes on the plant to help fund projects for the city.”I think it’s concerning,” said Partin, who explained that he hadn’t been notified of the pollution violations either. “That’s why I’m reaching out to see what can be done to make sure we’re holding the company accountable.”Legally, the company has a permit that allows them to dump over 1 million pounds of nitrogen into the river each year, more than any other company in Virginia. That is as much nitrogen as is produced by Henrico County, which has a population of over 300,000, according to state permit records.

The AdvanSix plant is seen on Thursday, March 16, 2023,in Hopewell, Virginia.

SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH

AdvanSix secured the nitrogen allowance in the wake of its numerous consent orders and controversial history. In 1975, a company called Allied Chemical was dumping a toxic pesticide called Kepone in the Chesapeake Bay between 1966 and 1975. Allied then bought Honeywell in 1999, later spinning off Advansix in 2016.Across the street from AdvanSix is a massive Dominion Energy power plant, as well as industrial plants that produce paper, chemicals, and food additives.AdvanSix is among the largest, commanding premium space along the James River waterfront, as well as a railway that allows the plant to bring in chemicals from across the country by train. The Hopewell plant is one of four owned by company, which also operates a Nylon 6 plant on Bermuda Hundred Road in Chesterfield.In 2021, company CEO Erin Kane issued a sustainability report, lauding the company’s platinum rating for corporate social responsibility, which was issued by an independent group called EcoVadis.

The AdvanSix plant is seen on Thursday, March 16, 2023,in Hopewell, Virginia.

SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH

The report “reflects our commitment to continuously improving our health, safety and environmental performance to best serve our customers, our key stakeholders and the communities where we live and work,” Kane said.That same year, however, AdvanSix was cited again by state regulators — this time for giving the state misleading readings of how much nitrogen one of their drains was releasing into the James River, according to a DEQ violation report.A drain that should have been releasing 56 milligrams per liter of nitrogen was actually releasing 1270 milligrams per liter, more than 20 times what their discharge records said.

📷 The Times-Dispatch’s ‘Photo of the Day’

Jan. 1, 2023

Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb (24) carries the ball as Washington Commanders cornerback Danny Johnson (36) tries to stop him during the first half of a NFL football game between the Cleveland Browns and the Washington Commanders on Sunday, January 1, 2023 in Landover, MD.

Shaban Athuman/ RICHMOND TIMES-D

Jan. 2, 2023

Sharon MacKenzie of Mechanicsville walked with her friend Cindy Nunnally and her golden retriever, Sunny, during a GardenFest for Fidos at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on Jan. 2.

Eva Russo, Times-Dispatch

Jan. 3, 2023

People remember eight-year-old P’Aris Moore during a vigil in Hopewell Tues., Jan. 3, 2023. Moore was shot and killed while playing in her neighborhood.

ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 4, 2023

UR’s Jason Nelson presses down court as George Washington’s Brendan Adams, left, and Hunter Dean defend in the Robins Center Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023.

ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 5, 2023

Manchester’s Olivia Wright reaches in on James River’s Alisha Whirley at James River Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023.

ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 6, 2023

Daron Pearson plays basketball at Smith Peters Park in the Carver neighborhood on Friday, January 6, 2023 in Richmond, Va.

Shaban Athuman/ RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 7, 2023

UR’s Tyler Burton takes a shot as Duquesne’s Joe Reece defends Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023.

ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 8, 2023

Park ranger Bert Dunkerly leads a walking tour of Revolutionary Richmond on the grounds of the Chimborazo Medical Museum in Richmond on Jan. 8. The tour was part of a multiday annual event interpreting Richmond’s Revolutionary history, including the capture of the city by British General Benedict Arnold on Jan. 5, 1781. 

EVA RUSSO, TIMES-DISPATCH

Jan. 10, 2023

Bon Secours Richmond Community Hospital COO Joey Trapani and Richmond City Councilwoman Cynthia Newbille react after cutting the ribbon to commemorate the opening of the East End Medical Office Building on Tuesday. Bon Secours Richmond Market President Mike Lutes (left) and Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, were also part of the festivities.

EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH