Inside Charm Industrial’s big bet on corn stalks for carbon removal

Good News Notes: “In recent weeks, a crew of staffers from a company called Charm Industrial have been working on the edge of Kansas corn fields, moving rolled bales of stalks, leaves, husks, and tassels up to a white semi-trailer. Inside, a contraption called a pyrolyzer uses high temperatures in the absence of oxygen to…

Scuba Divers Remove More Than 25,000 Pounds of Debris From Lake Tahoe

Good News Notes: “At more than two million years old and more than a mile above sea level, Lake Tahoe sits on the border of California and Nevada in the Northern Sierra Nevada mountains. The water is so pure that it isn’t even required to be filtered by water suppliers, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported. Despite the remarkable purity of its…

Bringing Solar To Coal Country In Kentucky

Good News Notes: “Martin County, Kentucky, is coal country. That means its economy is in the toilet. Where once there were thousands of coal miners in the county, today there are less than two dozen. Even when coal mining was big business in Kentucky, Martin County was far from prosperous. It is where Lyndon Johnson…

The US finally adopts a national recycling strategy

Good News Notes: “The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new national recycling strategy today, the agency’s first ever such commitment, according to the Washington Post. It’s a roadmap for the US to achieve a goal of recycling at least half of its municipal waste by the end of the decade. That’s a steep rise considering the US’ recycling rate has actually…

World’s largest carbon-capture plant Orca opens in Iceland

Good News Notes: “The world’s largest direct air carbon capture and storage plant has started operating in Iceland, run by Swiss company Climeworks. Named Orca, the plant sucks carbon dioxide directly from the air and buries it as rocks deep underground, using technology from Climeworks‘ Icelandic partner Carbfix. Orca has the capacity to remove 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the…

NCDOT, Volunteers collect 9M pounds of roadside litter

Good News Notes: “When consumer goods, often single-use disposables, are littered or improperly managed, this trash can find its way into rivers, streams and other waterways. These ultimately empty into our oceans, where the trash becomes marine debris, according to theEnvironmental Protection Agency. “In North Carolina, we take great pride in our natural resources, but…

Life Time to Eliminate Plastic Water Bottles by Labor Day

Good News Notes: “Life Time, the nation’s premier healthy lifestyle brand, announced today that it will stop selling water in plastic bottles at its 150+ athletic resorts across North America by Labor Day, cutting more than 1.6 million plastic bottles annually. The plastic bottles are being replaced by aluminum bottles with Life Time-branded natural alkaline spring water. While the vast…

How Sun & Swell Ditched Plastic for Compostable Packaging

Good News Notes: “The California-based company, Sun & Swell is distributing their organic food products in fully compostable packaging and reusable jars, making them one of the first companies to do so on a large scale. The company delivers organic, whole food to California and the surrounding region. As they grew and developed, the team became concerned…