Single-use plastic bags are the worst environmental choice at the supermarket. Wrong: they’re the best choice. These high-density polyethylene bags are a marvel of economic, engineering, and environmental efficiency: cheap and convenient, waterproof, strong enough to hold groceries but so thin and light that they require scant energy, water, or oth... See more

This creative accounting suggests that wasting less food would somehow undo all of the harms of food production. But the nutrient cycle does not care whether or not you clean your plate. All the environmental impacts that brought that meal into being are done deals; in the parlance of introductory economics, they are “sunk costs.” In focusing so mu... See more

American economy creates new jobs through organizing waste which is at best harmless and at worst poisonous and destructive.

Global crop cultivation supported solely by the laborious recycling of organic wastes and by more common rotations is conceivable for a global population of 3 billion people consuming largely plant-based diets, but not for nearly 8 billion people on mixed diets: recall that synthetic fertilizers now supply more than twice as much nitrogen as all re

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