The nurdles! They’re everywhere!
If you’re a friend of all things feathered, you might have heard of the Christmas Bird Count, an annual event in which everyday ornithophiles help tally the winged population. This year, citizen scientists trained their spotting expertise to something different: nurdles, the small microplastic pellets that become bottles, bins, and more. Participants in the first-ever International Plastic Pellet Count found 50,000 pellets at the 200 sites they combed. Often, the pieces wash into waterways from manufacturing; nearly a half-million metric tons of them make it into the oceans every year. While there’s no national policy for addressing the flow of nurdles into the environment (and talks for a global plastics treaty totally broke down), cities and states are stepping in to fill the regulatory void—particulary when it comes to microplastics. Some measures take aim at controlling the spread through bans on glitter and astroturf, while others weigh the benefits of using filters to trap microfibers flowing out of washing machines.
What you can do: Keep an eye on your local legislative docket for laws aimed at controlling the flow of microplastics. Beyond Plastics, a nonprofit based out of Bennington College, maintains a database of ways to push for change in your community and sends out localized alerts.
Virtual power plants are getting real
Close your eyes and imagine this: Every household in the U.S. has solar panels and a battery, and all those little sun-caching nodes merge together to create so-called virtual power plants. This scenario, according to a math from electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, could offset the power drains of data centers. Now that’s an idealized picture—Rewiring America admits as much—but it’s a thought experiment that underscores a broader point: If virtual power plants take off, they could massively remake the grid. And there are indeed promising signs. Capacity expanded 13.7% in the last year, according to a report from Wood Mackenzie. Household generation, however, is hovering just about 10% of that total, though there are signals that balance could shift. In Northern California, for example, Pacific Gas & Electric is running a pilot program to test how well customer-owned battery storage can meet demand, reports Canary Media.
What you can do: Even if your home isn’t part of an existing virtual power plant, that doesn’t mean the individual benefits of at-home electricity generation are lost. Not by a long shot. Check out our guides to see if solar panels or battery storage could be right for your home. It’s a great time to look into it, too: Federal tax incentives go away at the end of the year.
Fashion’s unchecked methane emissions
When it comes to the climate sins of the fashion world, polyester gets most of the attention. That’s understandable: Increased use of the material is driving up the industry’s emissions. But many tallies of the fashion’s planet-heating potential focus on carbon, overlooking the impacts of other greenhouse gases—namely methane, which is 28 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. According to a first-of-its-kind analysis commissioned by the group Collective Fashion Justice (CFJ), making clothes emits about 8.3 million metric tons of methane annually, which is four times the amount of the gas France emits in a year. Anyone who’s trying to cut back their meat intake for the sake of the climate can probably guess what’s behind it: the production of animal-derived fibers like leather, cashmere, and wool. The report’s authors say the industry needs to shift more focus towards recycling materials and developing scalable plant-based alternatives. “When we look at a whole host of environmental factors, recycled wool, plant-based materials, and other non-animal and non-fossil materials typically perform far better overall,” Emma Håkansson, CFJ’s founder, told Trellis.
What you can do: A few brands have made a teeny bit of progress on improving textile circularity, but right now less than 1% of clothing ever finds a second life. Where does that leave you? With a renewed call to extend the life of what’s already in your closet and dresser, shop secondhand as much as possible, and tap rental services when you need something for a special occasion.
A hopeful sign for more sustainable chocolate
Attention chocolate lovers: A new study in the journal Nature Sustainability says the sweet treat might be able to shed its status as a climate culprit. Pound-for-pound, chocolate lands in the top five foods in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The reason traces back to what’s called land-use change—which is a science-y way of saying it upends a natural ecosystem. In this case, the majority of the world’s cocoa beans come from West Africa, where forests are felled to plant cacao. The authors found that if 30% of cacao cropland in the Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana shifted to agroforestry, which combines planting of crops with trees instead of just growing a single cultivar, it could zero out the chocolate-related emissions of both nations. The authors point out that this isn’t a novel revelation, but it does add another data point to the push for more sustainable practices.
What you can do: Some of the world’s biggest chocolate brands have announced agroforestry initiatives, but a lack of standardization, funding, and oversight make it difficult to know how much credence to give their claims. In the meantime, the best a chocoholic can do is opt for treats that rate highly on The Chocolate Scorecard, an annual assessment that takes into account everything from environmental impact to labor conditions.