"PFAS chemicals are everywhere. Can new technologies get rid of them for good?"

"A few days before Christmas in 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency received a complaint through its National Response Center: “There has been a horrible smell in the air for almost a week,” the caller said, according to state records. “It’s so bad it’s making people throw up.”"

"A global supply shortage and U.S. tariffs have roiled the aluminum market this year, putting greater pressure on the United States to produce more of its own metal. ... Recycling aluminum, on the other hand, uses only 5% of the energy needed to make virgin metal in smelters, and the U.S. has an abundance of scrap.

"Norma Lopez Cadena tries to keep her granddaughters indoors — out of sight from the 65-foot flare burning excess gas from more than a dozen oil wells."

"At SA Recycling Terminal Island, a worker using a crane builds a 20-foot-high mountain of crushed trucks, buses and cars. ... The shredded steel and upholstery release toxic material such as lead, zinc and copper.

"California regulators broke state environmental laws by allowing polluters to buy clean fuel credits from large farms that are extracting gas from manure, a policy that harms poor communities and perverts the state’s clean air program, four advocacy groups allege in a lawsuit."

"Up to a quarter of all plastic flowing from rivers into the ocean are microplastics — delivering more than 260,000 metric tons in 2022, according to a new study published last week in Science." "Nearly all of the pollution comes from rivers in developing countries. High plastic use, mismanagement of waste, strong rainfall and high solar radiation are major factors."

"The City of Reno and Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) broke ground last week on an Advanced Purified Water Facility, a plant that will treat roughly 2 million gallons of wastewater a day to make it compliant with drinking-water standards and send it into a groundwater aquifer near Stead Airport, a first for Nevada."

"A group of commercial fishers, fishing guides and seafood processors in southwest Louisiana is suing liquefied natural gas company Venture Global, claiming that dredging operations in preparation for the construction of a new terminal resulted in a sediment spill that killed millions of oysters and diminished catches of finfish, crabs and shrimp."

"A review of court records in Winston County shows criminal prosecutions over trash debt have spanned decades. The Southern Poverty Law Center says the practice is illegal and immoral."