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Shell quietly backs away from pledge to increase ‘advanced recycling’ of plastics

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Wednesday, July 17, 2024

The energy giant Shell has quietly backed away from a 2022 pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling,” a practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis.“Advanced” or “chemical” recycling involves breaking down plastic polymers into tiny molecules that can be made into synthetic fuels or new plastics. The most common form, pyrolysis, does so using heat.Shell has invested in pyrolysis since 2019, touting it as a way to slash waste. That year, the company used oil made via pyrolysis in one of its Lousiana chemical plants for the first time. And it began publicizing a new goal for the technology: “Our ambition is to use 1m tonnes of plastic waste a year in our global chemicals plants by 2025.”But recently, the company rolled back that promise with little fanfare: “[I]n 2023 we concluded that the scale of our ambition to turn 1m tonnes of plastic waste a year into pyrolysis oil by 2025 is unfeasible,” it said in its 2023 sustainability report, published in March.Reached for comment, Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith said: “Our ambition, regardless of regulation, is to increase circularity and move away from a linear economy to one where products and materials are reused, repurposed and recycled.”The company has not called attention to this retraction, but it is a “significant” change, said Davis Allen, investigative researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, which shared the finding with the Guardian.“It’s an acknowledgement that advanced recycling is not developing in the way that companies have promised it will, and are counting on it to,” he said. “That’s pretty meaningful.”Researchers and environmental advocates have long raised concerns about advanced recycling, warning it can create even more toxic and planet-heating than virgin plastic production and is even more energy intensive than traditional plastic recycling. Studies show the facilities are most likely to harm communities that are already vulnerable to contamination and climate threats.But that is not why Shell struck its pledge. In the report, the company said the walk-back was necessary due to changes in the market.“While Shell sees customer demand for circular chemicals, the pace of growth globally is less than expected due to lack of available feedstock, slow technology development and regulatory uncertainty,” the document says.Complaints of insufficient feedstock may seem a surprising when hundreds of millions of tons of plastic are produced each year. But despite what is suggested in marketing materials, post-consumer items such as food packaging and empty soap bottles can’t easily be recycled via pyrolysis. The process works best with clean, homogeneous inputs, but sorting and cleaning plastic is expensive. As a result, most chemical recycling facilities working at scale rely mostly on processed industrial scrap – or “plastic left on the cutting room floor during production”, said Allen.Slow technology development has indeed been a factor in the advanced recycling market said Allen, but one that Shell “maybe should have seen coming”.The industry has claimed pyrolysis will be a groundbreaking solution to plastic waste for many years; Davis recently found a lobby group document making such claims in the 1970s. But experts have also told the the sector for decades that there are practical issues with advanced recycling, the Center for Climate Integrity has found.Today, there is mounting evidence that advanced recycling “often just does not work”, said Judith Enck, president of advocacy group Beyond Plastics and a former EPA Regional Administrator. Many of the United States’ 11 US advanced recycling facilities operate only partially, and two have been shut down altogether.Shell’s third reason for walking back their pledge – regulatory uncertainty – likely refers to a rapidly changing advanced recycling policy landscape. Many states have recently passed pro-advanced recycling legislation, due largely to lobbying by the powerful industry group the American Chemistry Council, said Enck.But some regulators are moving in the other direction. The Environmental Protection Agency last year withdrew a plan to ease some regulations on pyrolysis, while New Jersey recently decided chemically recycled material should not be considered recycled plastic.Other plastic producers, such as Exxon and Dow, have also pledged to rapidly expand their advanced recycling capacities. The technology can bring forth a “circular” plastics economy that reduces the need to use virgin fossil fuels, the industry often claims.“The commitments have tied into a broader strategy to to push advanced recycling as an answer to all of the public’s concerns about plastic waste,” said Allen. “It lets them say, ‘it won’t matter that we’re producing [several times] the amount of plastic that we’re producing now in several decades, because it will all be circular.”Though it has reversed this advanced recycling pledge, Shell does not appear to be backing away from its plans to expand plastic production. It recently opened a chemical complex as large as 300 football fields near Pittsburgh, with the capacity to produce 1.6 million tons of plastic per year.It is also still a member of the American Chemistry Council and its subgroup America’s Plastic Makers, which has recently been running an ad promoting advanced recycling which asks audiences to “imagine a future where plastic is not wasted, but instead remade over and over”.Still, the retraction is a tacit acknowledgement of the longstanding issues with the technology, said Enck.“I have never said this before, but Shell has made a wise decision here,” she said. “Chemical recycling is a polluting and an unreliable way to address the growing problem of plastics.”

Energy giant promised to turn 1m tonnes of plastic waste into oil each year, but report this year said goal is unfeasibleThe energy giant Shell has quietly backed away from a 2022 pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling,” a practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis.“Advanced” or “chemical” recycling involves breaking down plastic polymers into tiny molecules that can be made into synthetic fuels or new plastics. The most common form, pyrolysis, does so using heat. Continue reading...

The energy giant Shell has quietly backed away from a 2022 pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling,” a practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis.

“Advanced” or “chemical” recycling involves breaking down plastic polymers into tiny molecules that can be made into synthetic fuels or new plastics. The most common form, pyrolysis, does so using heat.

Shell has invested in pyrolysis since 2019, touting it as a way to slash waste. That year, the company used oil made via pyrolysis in one of its Lousiana chemical plants for the first time. And it began publicizing a new goal for the technology: “Our ambition is to use 1m tonnes of plastic waste a year in our global chemicals plants by 2025.”

But recently, the company rolled back that promise with little fanfare: “[I]n 2023 we concluded that the scale of our ambition to turn 1m tonnes of plastic waste a year into pyrolysis oil by 2025 is unfeasible,” it said in its 2023 sustainability report, published in March.

Reached for comment, Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith said: “Our ambition, regardless of regulation, is to increase circularity and move away from a linear economy to one where products and materials are reused, repurposed and recycled.”

The company has not called attention to this retraction, but it is a “significant” change, said Davis Allen, investigative researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, which shared the finding with the Guardian.

“It’s an acknowledgement that advanced recycling is not developing in the way that companies have promised it will, and are counting on it to,” he said. “That’s pretty meaningful.”

Researchers and environmental advocates have long raised concerns about advanced recycling, warning it can create even more toxic and planet-heating than virgin plastic production and is even more energy intensive than traditional plastic recycling. Studies show the facilities are most likely to harm communities that are already vulnerable to contamination and climate threats.

But that is not why Shell struck its pledge. In the report, the company said the walk-back was necessary due to changes in the market.

“While Shell sees customer demand for circular chemicals, the pace of growth globally is less than expected due to lack of available feedstock, slow technology development and regulatory uncertainty,” the document says.

Complaints of insufficient feedstock may seem a surprising when hundreds of millions of tons of plastic are produced each year. But despite what is suggested in marketing materials, post-consumer items such as food packaging and empty soap bottles can’t easily be recycled via pyrolysis. The process works best with clean, homogeneous inputs, but sorting and cleaning plastic is expensive. As a result, most chemical recycling facilities working at scale rely mostly on processed industrial scrap – or “plastic left on the cutting room floor during production”, said Allen.

Slow technology development has indeed been a factor in the advanced recycling market said Allen, but one that Shell “maybe should have seen coming”.

The industry has claimed pyrolysis will be a groundbreaking solution to plastic waste for many years; Davis recently found a lobby group document making such claims in the 1970s. But experts have also told the the sector for decades that there are practical issues with advanced recycling, the Center for Climate Integrity has found.

Today, there is mounting evidence that advanced recycling “often just does not work”, said Judith Enck, president of advocacy group Beyond Plastics and a former EPA Regional Administrator. Many of the United States’ 11 US advanced recycling facilities operate only partially, and two have been shut down altogether.

Shell’s third reason for walking back their pledge – regulatory uncertainty – likely refers to a rapidly changing advanced recycling policy landscape. Many states have recently passed pro-advanced recycling legislation, due largely to lobbying by the powerful industry group the American Chemistry Council, said Enck.

But some regulators are moving in the other direction. The Environmental Protection Agency last year withdrew a plan to ease some regulations on pyrolysis, while New Jersey recently decided chemically recycled material should not be considered recycled plastic.

Other plastic producers, such as Exxon and Dow, have also pledged to rapidly expand their advanced recycling capacities. The technology can bring forth a “circular” plastics economy that reduces the need to use virgin fossil fuels, the industry often claims.

“The commitments have tied into a broader strategy to to push advanced recycling as an answer to all of the public’s concerns about plastic waste,” said Allen. “It lets them say, ‘it won’t matter that we’re producing [several times] the amount of plastic that we’re producing now in several decades, because it will all be circular.”

Though it has reversed this advanced recycling pledge, Shell does not appear to be backing away from its plans to expand plastic production. It recently opened a chemical complex as large as 300 football fields near Pittsburgh, with the capacity to produce 1.6 million tons of plastic per year.

It is also still a member of the American Chemistry Council and its subgroup America’s Plastic Makers, which has recently been running an ad promoting advanced recycling which asks audiences to “imagine a future where plastic is not wasted, but instead remade over and over”.

Still, the retraction is a tacit acknowledgement of the longstanding issues with the technology, said Enck.

“I have never said this before, but Shell has made a wise decision here,” she said. “Chemical recycling is a polluting and an unreliable way to address the growing problem of plastics.”

Read the full story here.
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More than 520 chemicals found in English soil, including long-banned medical substances

Fertilising arable land with human waste leaves array of toxins that could re-enter food chain, study findsMore than 520 chemicals have been found in English soils, including pharmaceutical products and toxins that were banned decades ago, because of the practice of spreading human waste to fertilise arable land.Research by scientists at the University of Leeds, published as a preprint in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, found a worrying array of chemicals in English soils. Close to half (46.4%) of the pharmaceutical substances detected had not been reported in previous global monitoring campaigns. Continue reading...

More than 520 chemicals have been found in English soils, including pharmaceutical products and toxins that were banned decades ago, because of the practice of spreading human waste to fertilise arable land.Research by scientists at the University of Leeds, published as a preprint in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, found a worrying array of chemicals in English soils. Close to half (46.4%) of the pharmaceutical substances detected had not been reported in previous global monitoring campaigns.The anticonvulsants lamotrigine and carbamazepine were among the human-use medicines reported for the first time in English soils.A category of chemicals of particular concern to scientists are emerging contaminants, which are pharmaceuticals and other chemicals which have not been widely studied for their impacts on the environment or human health when they re-enter the food chain.Water companies treat human faeces and remove some of the contaminants from wastewater at their treatment centres. The resulting product is treated biosolids, the organic matter from the human waste, and this is often disposed of by being spread on fields as fertiliser.However, it appears that despite decontamination, hundreds of chemicals are leaching into the soil and in some cases staying there for many years. Several chemicals banned or withdrawn from use decades ago were found to persist in agricultural soils.One of the researchers, Laura Carter, a professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Leeds, said: “Some of the chemicals were banned for use decades ago and their presence suggests that they are really persistent … so soils are a long-term sink of these pollutants.”It is possible these chemicals will enter the food chain and be ingested by humans who eat food grown in these fields, she said. It could also harm farm productivity if the chemicals inhibit plant growth or negatively affect soil health.“Some of the work which we did before this monitoring campaign was focused on the uptake and accumulation into crops and looking at effects on soil health and plant health,” she said. “What we need to understand is the subsequent pathway moving from the crops to consumption. Some of these contaminants can [affect] the soil health, and inhibit the nutrients taken up into crops.”To conduct the research, Carter and her team asked farmers to send soil samples to their lab, and also visited some farms themselves. They took a variety of measures to detect what she calls a “chemical fingerprint” of the soil, using methods including mass spectrometry.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe EU is working to remove these emerging contaminants from wastewater across the continent by passing legislation requiring countries to implement “quaternary treatment”, which is an advanced pollution removal method that can get rid of micropollutants such as these chemicals. The UK has no plans to do this, and for now is sticking with the less precise tertiary treatment systems.“Wastewater treatment processes can remove some contaminants,” Carter said. “We found that the processes are not as efficient as they need to be to remove them.“These chemicals aren’t regulated for so there isn’t a drive to develop or to focus on technologies that can remove them. More advanced treatment like the EU’s planned quaternary treatment will typically remove more.”Soil pollution is understudied compared with wastewater and river research, despite soil being so important for human and environmental health, and the fact contaminants can persist for decades.“This is because of a combination of factors. There are analytical challenges, the chemicals are often at trace levels so you need to develop methods to extract them; the soil and the biosolids and the more agricultural focus means you have the complexity of the environmental metrics to contend with when you are trying to monitor them. And there is a lack of awareness about the pathways in which they enter the environment,” Carter said.The contaminants can be removed, she said: “You can do processes such as actively planting crops so they take up the contaminants and that is a way of removing contaminants from the soil. But then you’d be left with trying to dispose of that contaminated plant.”She was most surprised to find the banned chemicals, because this showed the long-term persistence of contaminants in soil. “They have been prohibited for use for quite some years so we were surprised by their persistence in the soils,” Carter said.“We were also able to detect some anti-cancer drugs which was surprising because there isn’t very much research in this space so we haven’t seen those detected before.”It is not the fault of farmers for spreading this, she said, as it is what they have been told to do in order to be sustainable.“We need to regulate for them properly and we need education to make sure that everybody knows what is being applied and what the potential risks are that are associated with that,” Carter said.

Chemicals
Food
Waste

Locusts and Landmines Threaten Ukraine’s Farmland

Ecosystems have also come under threat from toxic plants whose spread has been difficult to control during the Russian invasion. The post Locusts and Landmines Threaten Ukraine’s Farmland appeared first on The Revelator.

The people of Ukraine won’t soon forget the summer of 2025, a period that saw a significant increase in Russian attacks on the country, including the largest number of drones sent to kill and terrorize Ukrainians. This summer farmers witnessed another invasion of their lands — a locust outbreak that devastated crops across southern and eastern Ukraine. Videos shared with The Revelator show swarms of locusts — each as wide as a human hand — ravaging fields of sunflowers and corn in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kherson, and Odesa regions, adding to the dangerous effects of war on these ecosystems. It’s not a coincidence that the regions most affected by the outbreak are among those experiencing some of the worst fighting. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered an environmental crisis, experts say, that is manifesting in the rise of invasive species. “The fields with proper agrotechnical tillage are not conducive to laying eggs for the locusts,” says Andriy Fedorenko, a senior researcher at the Institute of Grain Crops of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences in Ukraine, who spent several weeks this summer researching the breeding patterns of locusts in the affected regions. “But abandoned agricultural lands and dried-up ponds are ideal.” He says the locusts have gained a foothold in vast farmlands made unusable by the Russian invasion, as well as the area affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. Devastated crops in Ukraine. Photo: Andriy Fedorenko (used with permission) The Soviet-era structure on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine was bombed on June 6, 2023, causing flooding in several towns on its banks along with mass casualties. Fedorenko observed that the dam’s destruction had disrupted regional ecosystems. The addition of dry weather and the increase in military activity led to a locust outbreak, he says. In photos and videos shared from the field, Fedorenko offered evidence of how flooding created optimal conditions for an outbreak — a conclusion shared by other scientists. “Receding floodwaters exposed large moist areas, optimal spots for egg laying and feeding,” Stanislav Viter, a researcher with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Group, wrote in a recent report. He noted that the wetland reed beds, saturated with floodwaters, provided fodder to the pests. “A single locust consumes vegetation equivalent to 1–1.5 times its weight every day,” Viter wrote. Crop fields “flooded and abandoned because of the war as well as on the bed of the former Kakhovka Reservoir” offered just that. Locusts also need favorable climate conditions — very high temperatures — to breed. Climate change may have furthered their recent reproductive success. “The temperature regime in total over two years, particularly in 2024, has also been extremely high compared to previous years,” says Fedorenko. In 2024 the temperatures across the fertile steppes were the highest in the past 10 years. “The average temperature increased by 1.1°C and 3.9°C in the past decade,” he says. ‘Ecocide’ In a statement shared with The Revelator, the Ukrainian government also provided a similar assessment, terming the phenomenon “Russian ecocide” — the destruction of the environment resulting from Russia’s invasion. “After the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant by Russian troops, large areas that had long been at the bottom of the reservoir were freed from water,” wrote Serhii Tkachuk, head of the State Service of Ukraine on Food Security. “These moist and warm soils, with abundant reed vegetation, became an ideal reserve for the development of locusts.”   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Ukraine (@ukraine) Tkachuk added that this year the government applied pesticides in several regions to address the outbreaks, most notably an 83-square-mile area in the Zaporizhzhia district. Other local reports documented farmers who suffered crop damages ranging from 25% to a near total loss, stretching as far westward as the Zhytomyr region. In the Kherson region, local media reports noted that nearly 10.4 square miles of sunflowers were destroyed. Locusts were also observed in 2024 in the territory of the Slobozhansky village council of the Chuhuiv district of the Kharkiv region. “There are also large areas of uncultivated land and neglected fields due to the war, and the locust invasion can be considered one of the manifestations of ecocide caused by the actions of the Russian Federation not only against Ukraine but also against the environment as a whole,” Tkachuk wrote. The attack on the dam had long-term consequences for agrarian communities, since nearly 90% of the irrigation canals from the dam have dried up. A 2024 report by the International Center for Ukrainian Victory estimated that the loss of irrigation caused cost the country $182 million a year in lost crop production. As climate change triggers a rise in temperatures, Viter’s report warns, new outbreaks could occur in parts of Ukraine that have become “suitable locations” for locusts due to the war. “The same applies to the El Niño phenomenon, with high temperatures and heavy rainfall in most regions of Ukraine,” he wrote. How Wars Can Breed Locusts In his report Viter noted, “Where there is war, there are locusts.” Michel Lecoq, an entomologist specializing in the ecology of locusts and grasshoppers, agrees. “Conflicts can lead to changes in ecological conditions, transforming some areas into breeding and outbreak zones where hopper bands and swarms can form,” he says. For example, he says, an outbreak of migratory locusts occurred in France after World War II and lasted until 1949. “On 20 July 1945, a swarm stretching 20 km in length was observed,” says Lecoq. “Some individuals migrated to England, illustrating the magnitude of the breeding and multiplication that must have occurred at the time — remarkable given that the species is usually very rare in the Landes, its original outbreak area.” Lecoq says these outbreaks developed in France following the abandonment and fallowing of large tracts of land that were no longer cultivated due to the war — much like what’s happening now in Ukraine. “In most outbreak areas, population dynamics is intimately connected to changes of water balance in breeding areas,” he says. The destruction of the dam “exposed numerous areas — previously submerged — that have since become highly favorable for this insect’s reproduction.” Raiding the Breadbasket The rise of locusts and other invasive species is adding to the challenges of the agrarian community, Ukraine’s economic backbone. Ukraine is often known as the breadbasket of the world, producing 10% of the global wheat market — shipping out 6.5 million metric tons every month before the war. Since the Russian invasion, however, Ukraine’s agricultural sector has suffered direct losses of more than $80 billion in infrastructure and production, according to studies. Evidence also suggests that not only has Russia deliberately targeted agricultural equipment, logistics and storage facilities, they’ve also stolen Ukrainian agricultural products. On top of that, landmines now contaminate more than 54,000 square miles of Ukraine — 20% of the country and one of the highest concentrations of the lethal devices in the world, according to the UN.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The HALO Trust (@thehalotrust) This assault on agricultural land has had a direct impact on global food security, prompting action and investment from international bodies and countries in prioritizing the demining of Ukrainian territories. However, the scale of the problem, compounded with the continuing and increasing Russian attacks that add to the contamination, means that it could be decades or even centuries, according to one estimate, before the land is once again usable for farming. According to a recent UN Food Insecurity report, the production estimate for 2024-25, for all grains in unoccupied areas, is 13% lower than the previous year. Amidst this a locust outbreak adds to farmers’ woes. Ironically, some restaurants have tried to raise awareness of the threat by addressing it from a different angle: A few chefs in Kharkiv added locusts to their menu, not only because they were widely available but also to dramatically highlight the problem. Farmlands to Battlefields While the worst of the locust outbreak has passed, Tkachuk wrote that the situation in frontline areas continues to be of “particular concern.” Lecoq also advises close monitoring of the areas exposed by the destruction of the dam — “as far as the current conflict allows,” he says — since swarms could potentially invade much larger territories. History shows how locust outbreaks can quickly travel and extend the scope of their destruction. “During the Middle Age, locust swarms originating from the delta regions of the Danube and Volga rivers were known to migrate as far as Western Europe, reaching Germany and even France,” he points out. The invasions in Ukraine could also spread beyond its borders. “Once invasions begin, they can spread rapidly from their original outbreak area… Swarms could potentially invade much larger territories,” Lecoq says. Unfortunately the situation in Ukraine remains unpredictable. Constant military activities, mainly from regular Russian bombings, have prevented farmers in the region from taking preventive or curative action. Conflicts can prevent access to key areas known to regularly host outbreaks when ecological conditions are favorable, Lecoq says. He points to examples of conflict zones in East Africa and the Near East that have hindered the detection of, and access to, the initial breeding and outbreak areas of the desert locust. “This allowed the outbreaks to expand and develop into an upsurge — a near-invasion — which rapidly spread across much of East Africa and extended as far as Pakistan and India,” he says. In Ukraine many of the affected areas are in active combat zones or areas that are still heavily mined, Tkachuk wrote, making it “difficult or impossible to carry out timely preventive and extermination measures.” Paradise, Disrupted Aside from the locusts and Putin’s army, other invasive species have also arrived unwelcome in Ukraine since the start of the war, experts have observed. “One of the war’s delayed consequences could be an outbreak of these alien species — dangerous invasive flora and fauna, the spread of which must be controlled,” Nataliia Pashkevich, senior researcher at the geobotany and ecology department, at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, wrote in a paper for UWEC. “The geography of the areas from which Russian military units are deployed into Ukraine is quite extensive… and an uncontrolled mass of seeds arriving together with equipment and soldiers is destructive for European ecosystems of Ukraine,” Pashkevich wrote. She identified invasive species such as Sosnowsky’s hogweed (Heracleum sosnowskyi) and giant hogweed (H. mantegazzianum) from the Caucasus that can now be found in occupied territories as well as parts of the Carpathian Mountains. The plants are known to spread rapidly and widely and threaten local insects, birds, plants, and fungi with their peculiar physicochemical toxicity, which can even harm humans on contact. The Revelator previously reported that destruction of the dam led to an unlikely outcome — the revival of the “Great Meadows” in Ukraine, which were lost during the rapid Soviet industrialization in the 1950s. While some of these vegetations can serve as a band-aid for war-wounded regions, risks remain. “As invasives spread, they transform the environment to their own advantage, changing key factors — such as humidity, lighting conditions, soil chemistry,” Pashkevich wrote. “Biological invasions recognize no borders.” Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator: Cranes in Ukraine: Birds of Joy in a War-Torn Land The post Locusts and Landmines Threaten Ukraine’s Farmland appeared first on The Revelator.

Chemicals
Climate
Crisis

Wild turkeys off the menu in Maine after ‘forever chemicals’ found in birds

Contamination of wildlife with Pfas, which can increase risk of cancer, a growing problem in USHunters in Maine have been warned not to eat wild turkeys in parts of the state, after the birds were found to contain “forever chemicals” that can cause an increased risk of cancer.Maine officials warned that high levels of Pfas – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – have been detected in wild turkey and deer killed and harvested in areas in the south-west of the state. Continue reading...

Hunters in Maine have been warned not to eat wild turkeys in parts of the state, after the birds were found to contain “forever chemicals” that can cause an increased risk of cancer.Maine officials warned that high levels of Pfas – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – have been detected in wild turkey and deer killed and harvested in areas in the south-west of the state.The warning could put a dampener on Thanksgiving plans for those who like to hunt and shoot their own dinner centerpiece. But the reality is that wildlife becoming contaminated with Pfas is increasingly a problem in the US.Earlier this fall Wisconsin and Michigan also issued “do not eat” advisories for deer, fish and birds, while in January health officials in New Mexico warned hunters that harmful chemicals had been found in wildlife at a lake in the south of the state.Maine’s department of inland fisheries and wildlife issued “do not eat” advisories in four areas north of Augusta, Maine’s capital earlier this month.“It was found that wildlife sampled within a mile of areas with high soil PFAS concentration levels resulted in animals that had levels of PFAS in their muscle tissue that warranted an advisory,” inland fisheries and wildlife said. “The Department and the Maine CDC [Centers for Disease Control] recommend that no one eats deer or wild turkey harvested in these wildlife consumption advisory areas.”Pfas are a group of chemicals that have been used in manufacturing and added to consumer products since the 1950s. They can take hundreds or even thousands of years to degrade, meaning if they leak into soil or water they can remain there for centuries. The chemicals have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems.“Wildlife is already contaminated with Pfas on a global scale, and that contamination will continue to be an issue until we greatly reduce the use of Pfas in consumer products and industrial applications,” Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the non-profit Environmental Working Group, said in an interview with the Guardian.Maine, which said it was sampling other areas in the state for Pfas, is not alone in being forced to confront the problem of forever chemicals. At least 17 states have issued advisories against eating fish containing Pfas, and birds and mammals appear to increasingly be a concern.The Michigan departments of health and human services and natural resources issued do not eat advisories in Clark’s Marsh, close to the former Wurtsmith air force base, in September. Officials warned that deer were likely to have “various” Pfas substances, and also said people should not eat any fish, aquatic or semi-aquatic wildlife taken from the marsh.Various advisories have been in place in the area since 2012, with the Pfas contamination linked to the use by the military of foam to extinguish fires. In August New Mexico found alarming levels of Pfas in the blood of people living or working near Cannon air force base – again due to military use of firefighting foam.Wisconsin issued advisories against eating fish and deer in an area around the town of Stella, in the north of the state. Officials said people should only eat deer muscle once a month, and should avoid eating deer liver altogether.Stoiber said it would take “decades” to remediate existing Pfas contamination.“The most effective and important step is to phase out the widespread use of Pfas in commerce and stop ongoing discharges of Pfas into the environment,” she said.“Federal regulations such as enforceable drinking water standards and stronger protections for source water are essential to reducing Pfas pollution and limiting future exposure.“Public education is equally critical. People need clear information about how Pfas exposures occur, since informed public pressure is often needed to drive policymakers to take action and end the widespread use of Pfas.”

Chemicals
Animals
Health

Ambitious Plan to Store CO2 Beneath the North Sea Set to Start Operations

INEOS plans to transform the Nini oil field in the North Sea into a carbon storage site

NORTH SEA, Denmark (AP) — Appearing first as a dot on the horizon, the remote Nini oil field on Europe’s rugged North Sea slowly comes into view from a helicopter.Used to extract fossil fuels, the field is now getting a second lease on life as a means of permanently storing planet-warming carbon dioxide beneath the seabed.In a process that almost reverses oil extraction, chemical giant INEOS plans to inject liquefied CO2 deep down into depleted oil reservoirs, 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) beneath the seabed.The Associated Press made a rare visit to the Siri platform, close to the unmanned Nini field, the final stage in INEOS’ carbon capture and storage efforts, named Greensand Future.When the project begins commercial operations next year, Greensand is expected to become the European Union’s first fully-operational offshore CO2 storage site. Environmentalists say carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, has a role to play in dealing with climate change but should not be used as an excuse by industries to avoid cutting emissions. Mads Gade, chief executive of INEOS Energy Europe, says it will initially begin storing 400,000 tons (363,000 metric tons) of CO2 per year, scaling up to as much as 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) annually by 2030.“Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions,” says Gade. “We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe in actually storing a lot of the CO2 here.”Greensand has struck deals with Danish biogas facilities to bury their captured carbon emissions into the Nini field’s depleted reservoirs.A “CO2 terminal” that temporarily stores the liquefied gas is being built at the Port of Esbjerg, on the western coast of the Danish Jutland peninsula. A purpose-built carrier vessel, dubbed “Carbon Destroyer 1,” is under construction in the Netherlands.Proponents of carbon capture technology say it is a climate solution because it can remove the greenhouse gas that is the biggest driver of climate change and bury it deep underground.The EU has proposed developing at least 250 million tons (227 million metric tons) of CO2 storage per year by 2040, as part of plans to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050.Gade says carbon capture and storage is one of the best means of cutting emissions."We don’t want to deindustrialize Europe,” he said. “We want to have actually a few instruments to decarbonize instead.”Experts at Denmark’s geological survey say Greensand sandstone rock is well-suited for storing the liquefied CO2. Almost a third of the rock volume is made up of tiny cavities, said Niels Schovsbo, senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.“We found that there (are) no reactions between the reservoir and the injected CO2. And we find that the seal rock on top of that has sufficient capacity to withhold the pressure that is induced when we are storing CO2 in the subsurface,” added Schovsbo. “These two methods makes it a perfect site for storage right there.” Limitations and criticism But while there are many carbon capture facilities around the world, the technology is far from scale, sometimes uses fossil fuel energy in its operations and captures just a tiny fraction of worldwide emissions.The Greensand project aims to bury up to 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) of CO2 a year by 2030. The International Energy Agency says nearly 38 billion tons (34.5 billion metric tons) of CO2 were emitted globally last year.Environmental campaigners say CCS has been used as an excuse by industries to delay cutting emissions.“We could have CCS on those very few sectors where emissions are truly difficult or impossible to abate,” said Helene Hagel, head of climate and environmental policy at Greenpeace Denmark.“But when you have all sectors in society almost saying, we need to just catch the emissions and store them instead of reducing emissions — that is the problem.”While the chemical giant ramps up carbon storage efforts, it is also hoping to begin development at another previously unopened North Sea oil field."The footprint we deliver from importing energy against producing domestic or regional oil and gas is a lot more important for the transition instead of importing with a higher footprint,” said Gade, defending the company’s plans.“We see a purpose in doing this for a period while we create a transition for Europe.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Chemicals
Climate
CO2

California regulators approve rules to curb methane leaks and prevent fires at landfills

California air regulators adopted new rules designed to reduce methane leaks and better respond to disastrous underground fires at landfills statewide.

In one of the most important state environmental decisions this year, California air regulators adopted new rules designed to reduce methane leaks and better respond to disastrous underground fires at landfills statewide. California Air Resources Board members voted 12-0 on Thursday to approve a batch of new regulations for the state’s nearly 200 large landfills, designed to minimize the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas produced by decomposing organic waste. Landfills are California’s second-largest source of methane emissions, following only the state’s large dairy cow and livestock herds.The new requirements will force landfill operators to install additional pollution controls; more comprehensively investigate methane leaks on parts of landfills that are inaccessible with on-the-ground monitoring using new technology like drones and satellites; and fix equipment breakdowns much faster. Landfill operators also will be required to repair leaks identified through California’s new satellite-detection program. The regulation is expected to prevent the release of 17,000 metric tons of methane annually — an amount capable of warming the atmosphere as much as 110,000 gas-fired cars driven for a year. It also will curtail other harmful landfill pollution, such as lung-aggravating sulfur and cancer-causing benzene. Landfill operators will be required to keep better track of high temperatures and take steps to minimize the fire risks that heat could create. There are underground fires burning in at least two landfills in Southern California — smoldering chemical reactions that are incinerating buried garbage, releasing toxic fumes and spewing liquid waste. Regulators found explosive levels of methane emanating from many other landfills across the state.During the three-hour Air Resources Board hearing preceding the vote, several Californians who live near Chiquita Canyon Landfill — one of the known sites where garbage is burning deep underground — implored the board to act to prevent disasters in other communities across the state.“If these rules were already updated, maybe my family wouldn’t be sick,” said Steven Howse, a 27-year resident of Val Verde. “My house wouldn’t be for sale. My close friend and neighbor would still live next door to me. And I wouldn’t be pleading with you right now. You have the power to change this.”Landfill operators, including companies and local governments, voiced their concern about the costs and labor needed to comply with the regulation. “We want to make sure that the rule is implementable for our communities, not unnecessarily burdensome,” said John Kennedy, a senior policy advocate for Rural County Representatives of California, a nonprofit organization representing 40 of the state’s 58 counties, many of which own and operate landfills. “While we support the overarching goals of the rule, we remain deeply concerned about specific measures including in the regulation.”Lauren Sanchez, who was appointed chair of the California Air Resources Board in October, recently attended the United Nations’ COP30 climate conference in Brazil with Gov. Gavin Newsom. What she learned at the summit, she said, made clear to her that California’s methane emissions have international consequences, and that the state has an imperative to reduce them. “The science is clear, acting now to reduce emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants is the best way to immediately slow the pace of climate change,” Sanchez said.

Chemicals
Climate
Government

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Forests
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