plastic bags

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Dozens of Dead Turtles Are Washing Up on This Beach

To blame? Plastics

(Newser) - The hawksbill sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, its shell ashen and stomach taut. A week ago, the adolescent turtle washed up on a beach in Kalba, a city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once unspoiled, the coast of mangrove trees is now...

Your Cotton Bag Isn't Saving the Planet. Maybe the Opposite

It takes a lot of water to grow cotton

(Newser) - How many cotton tote bags do you have shoved into closets and cabinets and your car trunk? If the answer is too many, but you've at least consoled yourself that you're doing the planet good, bad news. In a piece for the New York Times on our "...

New Jersey Moves Beyond Plastic Bag Ban

Lawmakers pass prohibition on single-use paper bags, as well

(Newser) - Other states have banned single-use plastic bags, but New Jersey is going further. On Thursday, the Legislature approved a measure prohibiting the use of single-use paper bags in supermarkets, as well as single-use plastic bags in stores and restaurants. The bill also outlaws disposable food containers and cups made of...

New Trump Slogan: 'Make Straws Great Again'

And you can buy them for $15

(Newser) - President Trump's reelection campaign has a new slogan—or it's mentioned in an email, anyway. "Make Straws Great Again," reads a Friday missive from Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. The email takes a stab at paper straws (they "don't work") before making its...

Everyone Wants These Bags. That Wasn't the Plan

Embarrassing messages on Vancouver store's plastic bags meant to stop bag use, not spur it

(Newser) - The plastic bags given out at East West Market were supposed to shame customers out of using them . Instead, they've become collectors' items of sorts, because customers think they're irreverently cool. Management had hoped the bags at the Vancouver store—designed with what the New York Times calls...

Market's Way to Discourage Plastic Bags: Embarrassment

Vancouver's East West Market prints, er, interesting logos on them

(Newser) - Vancouver's East West Market really, really wants to discourage its shoppers from using plastic bags. For one thing, it charges a nickel for every one it distributes, reports Fox 7 . But as the Vancouver Courier reports, the market's newest strategy goes way beyond that. East West's plastic...

This Is a Photo of the Pyrenees. And, Apparently, Microplastic

Researchers find it in the air there, 4K feet up

(Newser) - It's a memorable scene in American Beauty: film of a plastic bag floating in the wind. A researcher with Scotland's University of Strathclyde started wondering about bags like that, and where they go when they leave our sight. "We thought that maybe it just doesn't disappear,...

Swimmer Ends 'Very Disturbing' Journey

Benoit Lecomte has a message for the world

(Newser) - A swimmer's record-breaking effort may be on hold, but his warning endures: There's way too much plastic out there. Benoît "Ben" Lecomte set foot on Oahu, Hawaii on Monday, conclusively ending his dream of being the first swimmer to cross the Pacific Ocean, per CNN . A...

Big Change Coming to Kroger, and It's Starting in Seattle

Supermarket chain to get rid of all plastic bags by 2025

(Newser) - The nation's largest grocery chain will be free of plastic bags at all of its nearly 2,800 stores by 2025. Kroger Co., which orders about 6 billion bags each year, will begin phasing out their use immediately at one of its chains based in Seattle, a city that'...

'Bag Rage' Kicks In as Stores Enact Plastic Ban

Australia encounters resistance amid away from single-use plastic bags

(Newser) - The move away from plastic bags became abusive and even violent in Australia over the past couple of weeks, Reuters reports. With retailers in most Australian states facing a fine for offering single-use plastic bags as of July 1, major supermarket chains like Woolworths and Coles began the transition early—...

Whale 'Struggled Fiercely' in Painful 5-Day Death

The poor creature had ingested 80 plastic bags

(Newser) - Going shopping today? Consider this: A whale died Friday in Thailand from having ingested 80 plastic bags weighing some 17 pounds, CNN reports. Thai officials say locals in Southern Thailand noticed the short-fin male pilot whale looking sick and floating oddly earlier this week, so government veterinarians and people from...

In One of Planet's Most Remote Spots, a Plastic Bag
Plastic Bag Found in
Truly Depressing Spot
new study
May 15, 2018 10:45 AM CDT

Plastic Bag Found in Truly Depressing Spot

Not even the bottom of the Mariana Trench is safe from our trash

(Newser) - "Single-use plastic reached the world's deepest ocean trench at 10,898 m," states the study plainly, referring to that great scourge: the plastic bag. National Geographic reports that a review of the Deep-Sea Debris Database, an assemblage of photos and videos taken during roughly 5,000 dives...

China Is No Longer Accepting the World's Recycling

Move is causing buildup of paper, plastic overseas

(Newser) - China has declared that it's no longer accepting "foreign garbage"—which has left a lot of countries, including the US, wondering what to do with it. As part of a drive to reduce pollution, the country stopped accepting 24 kinds of waste on Jan. 1, including mixed...

Now With Your Tap Water, a Side of Plastic
Now With Your Tap Water,
a Side of Plastic
NEW STUDY
Sep 7, 2017 9:20 AM CDT

Now With Your Tap Water, a Side of Plastic

Researchers warn that we're ingesting microparticles

(Newser) - Perhaps we'd best hope we are what we eat, because if we are what we drink then we are getting pretty plastic. Researchers who tested samples of tap water from around the world say there are microplastics in much of it, with the highest contamination rate in the US,...

Plastic Bag Users Face Jail Time Under New Kenya Law

Tough new ban seeks to reduce plastic pollution

(Newser) - Using a plastic bag in Kenya now comes with a hefty price. According to the Guardian , offenders of a new law banning plastic bags in the eastern African country can face up to four years in jail or fines up to $40,000. Ten years in the making, the “...

Beekeeper's Surprise Find May Help Our Plastic Problem

Possible solution: hungry caterpillars

(Newser) - Many scientific discoveries can be attributed to a happy accident—the discovery of penicillin thanks to moldy petri dishes, for instance. Might our mounting plastic crisis be solved similarly? One scientist and amateur beekeper in Spain has discovered that the larvae of wax moths, which live on beeswax and thus...

One 2-Ton Whale Was No Match for 30 Plastic Bags

Bags, other waste found in stomach of euthanized whale in Norway

(Newser) - Norwegian zoologists have found about 30 plastic bags and other plastic waste in the stomach of a beaked whale that had beached on a southwestern Norway coast, the AP reports. The visibly sick, 2-ton goose-beaked whale was euthanized, Terje Lislevand of Bergen University said Friday. "The [whale's] stomach...

California Gets Statewide Plastic Bag Ban

Bag-makers say they want a referendum

(Newser) - After some will-he-or-won't-he speculation, California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed America's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags into law . "This bill is a step in the right direction—it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks, and even the vast ocean itself," the...

California May Get Nation's First Statewide Ban on Plastic Bags

But it's unclear whether Gov. Jerry Brown will sign legislation

(Newser) - California's legislature has approved what will be a national first if Gov. Jerry Brown goes along—a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags in supermarkets and other stores, reports the Los Angeles Times . Lawmakers narrowly approved the measure yesterday in the name of reducing litter on streets and beaches....

Man Says Stuffed Walmart Bag Broke, Killed Wife
Man Says Stuffed Walmart Bag Broke, Killed Wife
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sep 1, 2013 7:00 PM CDT

Man Says Stuffed Walmart Bag Broke, Killed Wife

William Freis is suing store, bag maker

(Newser) - A Nebraska man is suing Walmart, claiming one of its plastic bags led to his wife's death. William Freis says his wife, Lynette, went shopping in 2010 and the Walmart cashier put her 2-pound bag of rice and two 42-ounce cans of La Choy in just one plastic bag—...

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