Search

This past Tuesday, December 13, Boston City Council hosted a public hearing to address a proposed "bring your own bag" ordinance seeking to reduce waste from plastic bags. Unimaginable numbers of plastic bags are used daily, for an average of 12 minutes before they are discarded. Unfortunately, less than 5% of single-use plastic bags are in fact recycled. Many people do not know how to deal with plastic bags. Really the only option for consumers is a bin in the occasional grocery store. But, like I said, only 5% of these bags ever make it to a recycling center.

The other 95% of plastic bags

December 14, 2016 marks a historic day in the campaign for to fix aging gas distribution pipelines: an ordinance filed by Councilor Matt O’Malley’s ordinance passed 12-1 in the Boston City Council. The ordinance passing is a huge success and big step in the right direction for riding the city of dangerous methane leaks from our aging gas infrastructure. The ordinance is especially exciting in that it addresses concerns about worker safety, promotes infrastructure coordination, and promotes environmental protection.

The ordinance uses the city’s permitting authority to condition, coordinate and

Follow Joel on Twitter: @joelwool

When Denny Alsop first canoed across Massachusetts in 1988 (see the New York Times) to raise awareness of water pollution and push for environmental progress, he probably did not expect to be making the same trek nearly thirty years later. But General Electric's February statement that it would fight the EPA's proposed cleanup plan for the Housatonic River convinced him that there was need to push hard for true restoration of the waterway still tarnished by toxic PCBs.

Early in 2016, GE announced it would relocate to Boston and receive a whopping public