Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
Okay, so how can less waste be generated? Here I consider three types: compostable, recyclable and food. I’ll talk about food first. Food waste The way I cut down on my food waste is by consuming older food items first. Very little food gets uneaten that way. Take bananas, for example. These can get ripe … Read more
On Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, I received an information mailing (by any other name a circular or flyer) from the City of Fresno having to do with holiday waste disposal. It’s dated December 2024. In Fresno, recycling is, apparently, a big deal; the matter the City no doubt takes very seriously. As far as I’m … Read more
The United States generates more food waste than all but two countries. To address this, the federal government set a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030 compared to 2016 levels, to about 164 pounds per person annually. But a new study published in Nature Food and led by University of California, Davis, … Read more
So, on the Air Quality Matters blog, what do I do for my 1,500th post? That’s right: This is my 1,500th. I’ve been posting here for 12 years now. More than 12, actually. Well, I thought for a moment and all of a sudden this idea popped into my head. My mind focused on the plastics … Read more
WASHINGTON – Today, Sept. 23, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a final rule to establish a new program to better manage, recycle, and reuse climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act. The final rule includes provisions that will reduce wasteful leaks from large refrigeration and air conditioning equipment and will … Read more
So, yesterday I received a mailer alerting me (it was addressed to “Resident”) to restart – effective Mar. 1, 2024 – recycling organic wastes, like food scraps. Why? Well, I know why: To keep such out of landfills where it could and presumably does, emit methane – otherwise known as landfill gas – into the … Read more
AMHERST, Mass. – rStream, a robotics company focused on waste management and recycling formed by two UMass Amherst students and incubated at Greentown Labs, Somerville, is rolling out a pilot program with UMass Dining Services. Running through the fall semester, the program will test the AI’s ability to identify in real time what is going … Read more
When it comes to waste (and the disposal thereof), it’s a, figuratively speaking, jungle out there. And, it’s seemingly everywhere: It’s in outer space and in the seas. It’s in the air (in the form of air pollution), produced by living, breathing beings (nasal discharge, earwax, in the context also of evacuated or excreted bodily … Read more
With Air Quality Awareness Week fast approaching, the focus of discussion today centers on Fresno, a central California city that year after year sees some of the country’s worst air pollution. Having said that, what better time than this to bring attention to the air-quality deficit that Fresno has long been hamstrung by, done in … Read more
According to information printed on a mailed City of Fresno, California distribution I received on Jan. 6, 2022 pertaining to (as best I could tell) residential waste recycling, American households produce in excess of, on average, one quarter more waste (by weight, presumably), between Thanksgiving and New Years, than what is presumably generated per residential … Read more