Dump trucks refuel with renewable natural gas made from human poop at the Persigo Wastewater Treatment Plant in Grand Junction.
Credit: City of Grand Junction

No matter how you spin it, the business of raw sewage isn’t sexy. But in Colorado, the city of Grand Junction is making huge strides to reinvent their wastewater industry – and the result is like finding a diamond in the sludge.

The Persigo Wastewater Treatment Plant is processing 8m gallons of Grand Junction’s human waste into renewable natural gas (RNG), also known as biomethane. The RNG is then used to fuel about 40 fleet vehicles, including garbage trucks, street sweepers, dump trucks and transit buses.

It’s possible through a process called anaerobic digestion, which breaks down organic matter into something called raw biogas. The biogas is then collected and upgraded to RNG – at pipeline quality – and can be used as […]

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The Obama administration announced Friday that it is stopping most new coal leasing on America’s public lands as it moves to modernize and reform the federal coal leasing program, which has not been updated in more than 30 years.

“Given serious concerns raised about the federal coal program, we’re taking the prudent step to hit pause on approving significant new leases so that decisions about those leases can benefit from the recommendations that come out of the review,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said Friday.

The plan includes three measures to address these issues and update the federal coal program to account for taxpayer interests and environmental challenges. The Interior Department will conduct a review to identify potential reforms to the outdated program, put a temporary pause on new coal leasing (which will not apply to existing leases), and direct the U.S. Geological Survey to begin annual tracking and reporting on greenhouse gas emissions that result from fossil fuels extracted on public lands.

“A complete assessment of the federal coal program is overdue,” said Dan Bucks, former director of […]

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Plastic in the ocean Credit Shutterstock

There are millions of tons of plastic floating around in the world’s oceans — between 10 and 30 billion pounds of it, to be imprecise — and more than half of it comes from just five countries.

Those countries are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, (emphasis added)according to a report from the Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. Here’s why these countries are on the hook for up to 60 percent of the world’s ocean plastic, from GlobalPost:

As Asian economies rise, people have more cash to blow on Marlboros and Sprites at 7-Eleven. But the junk these habits produce often doesn’t end up in legit landfills.

In the five Asian countries listed above, only about 40 percent of garbage is properly collected. Across Asia, trash is often piled up in communal dumps where stray bits are swept up by the wind and cast into the ocean.

Even sanctioned garbage dump sites are sometimes intentionally set up near rivers […]

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Film-maker Michael Moore, who is from Flint, attended a rally in the city on Saturday.
Credit: Jake May/The Flint Journal

US President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in Flint, Michigan, where the water has become contaminated with lead.

The city’s water became contaminated after a change in supplier in 2014. Corrosive water leached lead from old pipes into the water supply.

The emergency declaration will unlock $5m (£3.5m) in federal funding.

Earlier in the week, Governor Rick Snyder had requested $31m from the federal government.

He said the need in the city of almost 100,000 people “far exceeds the state’s capability” and sought a disaster declaration.

But reports in Michigan said Mr Obama denied that request, that would have freed up more than the $5m, as such declarations are only made for natural disasters.

In October, testing revealed increased lead levels in water supplies and in children’s blood. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities and behavioural problems […]

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