Dumpster dive | December 5, 2023

• Looking for some not-horrible-for-the-planet gifts? Check out my greener gift guide for some suggestions.

• ICYMI, DuPont, 3M, and Chemours were recently inducted into the GIC Hall of Shame over their reckless practices and proliferation of toxic PFAS chemicals (aka "forever" chemicals).

• In that article, I mentioned that North Carolina was slated to receive 4 million pounds of toxic PFAS waste from a Chemours plant in The Netherlands, so it was shockingly great to hear that Backlash forces EPA to pause toxic PFAS waste imports to US from Netherlands. [Guardian]

• Thanks to microplastics, we consume about 5 grams of plastic each week (equivalent to the weight of a credit card). That's one reason Why You Should Stop Using Plastic Cutting Boards Right Now. [Outside]

• Speaking of microplastics: After reading My Delirious Trip to the Heart of Swiftiedom [NYT], I started fretting about how much glitter Swifties will have deployed by the time Taylor's Eras tour will wrap in December. After a 10-month run and an estimated 10,872,000 attendees, that's a lot of glitter/microplastic. So I was so happy to learn that The EU's Ban on Glitter Has Officially Gone Into Effect. I hope the US and other countries follow suit. [Allure]

• I'm pretty lax about keeping my email tidy but will be changing my ways after learning Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them. Storage is one factor, but I also had no idea that in the US, emails older than 180 days are considered abandoned and can be accessed by the government without a warrant. Creepy! [How-To Geek]

• Global plastic waste is already out of control and expected to triple by 2060, so the outcome of the recent UN Environment Assembly is promising: 175 nations commit to developing a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution by 2024. Let's hope big oil doesn't run interference. [UN Environment Programme]

• Perhaps attendees of the assembly were inspired by photos of the waste pickers of Nairobi's Dandora dump site—within 8 miles from where the summit took place—or by the reality that every minute in sub-Saharan Africa, enough plastic waste to cover a football pitch is openly dumped or burned. [The Guardian]

• South Pacific Islanders are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as photographer Nick Brandt conveys in these haunting "pre-apocalyptic" underwater photos. [CNN]

Image by Chris Clark from Pixabay