Starbucks coffee will outlive us all
And Joe Biden hates wild cats
Hey what’s up hello. Another week, another edition of Garbage Soup. Lots of plastic news and I also feel compelled to mention that Vanna White had covid this week and was absent from Wheel Of Fortune. This fact has nothing to do with the roundup, but I needed it to be recorded in history somewhere. An emblem of the times we’re in.
Clouds now contain plastic, risking contamination of ‘everything we eat and drink’
Nothing much to say about this except that it’s devastating. We ruined clouds. I don’t know, it breaks my heart a little.
J’Biden is waiving a ton of environmental laws to build a border wall
Sir? This isn’t you. Biden is suspending a whopping 26 environmental laws to build a border wall in Texas to prevent migrants from entering the country through Mexico. I’m sure the prez is between a rock and a hard place and stuff, but choosing to endanger both the earth and human beings doesn’t feel like the right move. Via Gizmodo:
Biden’s support for a border wall marks a turnaround from his previous stance that border walls do not work and are a waste of taxpayer money; he discontinued similar efforts passed by former President Donald Trump in January 2021. However, the president told reporters on Thursday that he has no choice but to build the wall using the money that was allocated in 2019. “There’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that,” Biden told reporters at a White House press briefing on Thursday. But when he was asked if he now believes a border wall works, Biden said: “No.”
Starbucks coffee will outlive us all
The green mermaid developed a specific type of bean cultivated to resist diseases amplified by climate change. From The Guardian:
Starbucks-developed arabica seeds are cultivated to resist the leaf rust and tests have been shown to generate a higher yield in a shorter period of time. According to the company, the Starbucks agronomy team plants several different varieties and hybrids of seeds, monitoring the trees’ resistance to diseases and nutrient absorption through at least six generations or about 12 years.
Also interesting:
The company is giving away its six climate-resilient coffee tree varieties to farmers who are free to sell the resulting crop to buyers other than Starbucks. The coffee giant buys from about 400,000 farmers across 30 countries, and over the last five years, it has given away three million climate-resistant seeds annually, developed by others to farms in Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, China, Indonesia, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
What a smart model, right? I’d love to see other brands/companies work on something similar.
It was the warmest September on record
Plastic-free parks, ya dig?
At the end of September, the senate introduced the Reducing Waste In National Parks Act, proposed legislation that would ban the sale of plastic bottles (and other disposable plastic goods) in national parks, per the Plastic Pollution Coalition. I went to Acadia National Park a few years ago and remember feeling weird when I saw plastic water bottles strewn about, so for that reason, and others, I support this.
Banning plastic in government-run places is trending and to me that is great. It’s frustrating that it has to be done in such a piecemeal way, but progress is progress.
Byeeeeee