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This once-toxic industrial wasteland could become Portland’s most expansive botanical gardens

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Friday, January 2, 2026

People are invited to comment through Jan. 30 on the proposal to convert the McCormick & Baxter Superfund site, a former creosote wood treating facility in North Portland, into educational botanical gardens open to the public on the east bank of the Willamette River.The nonprofit organization Portland Botanical Gardens, which hopes to purchase the 59-acre site, also proposes to develop a greenspace along the waterfront, extending the Willamette River greenway and water trail, and access to the river.The former McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. property at 6900 N. Edgewater Ave. is adjacent to the University of Portland Franz River Campus and just south of the future Willamette Cove Natural Area.The once-contaminated facility is considered safe for people, animals and plants after a cleanup project was completed in 2005, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and federal Environmental Protection Agency. Because the property is a Superfund site, both agencies will continue environmental monitoring and long-term protections. The agencies will require the new owner to follow site restrictions, meet monitoring requirements and submit development plans for review.Portland Botanical Gardens, formed in 2020, has worked toward securing at least $3 million for the initial development and operations of the gardens. The organization has conceptual plans and submitted a proposal to acquire the site, according Matt Taylor, the nonprofit’s executive director. The Portland Botanical Gardens‘ consent order gives the nonprofit certain liability protections related to the previous contamination in return for providing a substantial public benefit.The property was last appraised at $2.39 million. DEQ reached an agreement with Portland Botanical Gardens to recover 50% of the fair market value — which is $1.195 million — as partial reimbursement for past cleanup costs. The EPA will negotiate a separate agreement with Portland Botanical Gardens.If approved, the DEQ payment will go to Oregon’s industrial orphan site fund, which DEQ can use toward further remedial action or habitat improvements to the riparian forest and the site’s rocky beach area, according to DEQ.Property owner McCormick & Baxter Creosoting, which declared bankruptcy in 1991, will not receive any compensation.DEQ will consider all written and verbal comments received by Jan. 30 before making a final decision regarding the proposed sale. People can learn more about the project, ask questions and make comments to DEQ and Portland Botanical Gardens representatives during a virtual public meeting 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8 (register to join on Zoom at deq-oregon-gov.zoom.us).Two prior comment sessions took place Dec. 11 and Dec. 16.People can view the documents in person at a DEQ office (700 N.E. Multnomah St., Suite 600 in Portland) or request language interpretation by contacting Sarah Miller at sarah.miller@deq.oregon.gov or 503-863-0561.History of the siteThe McCormick & Baxter creosote plant Superfund site in N. Portland, seen here on Fri., April 26, 2024, may eventually become the location of the Portland Botanical Gardens. The proposed project that would fill the area between Metro’s Willamette Cove property and the University of Portland’s Franz River campus.Dave Killen / The OregonianThe McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. operated between 1944 and 1991, treating wood products with creosote, pentachlorophenol and inorganic preservatives such as arsenic, copper, chromium and zinc.The site was heavily contaminated and wastewater from the process was discharged directly to the Willamette River and in upland soils, according to DEQ. Timeline1983: DEQ initiated investigations of the site after federal and state cleanup laws were launched in the early 1980s.1991: McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. declared bankruptcy. 1992: Due to significant human health and environmental risk, DEQ declared the property as an orphan site since the company responsible for the contamination was unable or unwilling to pay for needed cleanup actions.DEQ removal measures included demolishing the plant, removing sludge and soil, and extracting creosote from groundwater. Between 1989 and 2011, approximately 6,200 gallons of creosote was removed from groundwater and disposed offsite.1994: The EPA placed the site on the National Priorities List and designated DEQ as the lead agency for implementing the cleanup while funding for remedial design and construction was provided by EPA. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s: DEQ and EPA conducted preliminary studies and design work, including a cleanup plan and remedial design. 2005: Cleanup was deemed completed. The project included construction of an 18-acre underground groundwater barrier wall to prevent migration of pollution from the site to the river and capping contaminated sediment in the Willamette River. More than 33,000 tons of soil was removed and replaced by two feet of clean soil across the entire site. Areas with highly contaminated surface soils were removed to a depth of four feet, according to DEQ. To prevent rainwater from entering the interior of the barrier wall isolating contaminated groundwater, a 16-acre engineered impermeable cap with a stormwater discharge system was placed above the barrier wall footprint. To protect the cap from erosion, it is covered with an armoring layer made of large rock and articulated concrete blocks. This also included re-grading the riverbank and adding two feet of topsoil to cap the shoreline.2006: The capped riverbank was planted with native trees and shrubs after the soil was stabilized with the native grasses.April 2024: Portland Botanical Gardens entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the current property owner. The prospective purchaser agreement requires Portland Botanical Gardens to take over a portion of the onsite operations and maintenance of the riparian area vegetation, site security and ensuring that the upland cap is not disturbed.May 2024: DEQ received a legally binding agreement application from Portland Botanical Gardens to purchase and redevelop the property. Ongoing: According to the Portland Botanical Gardens news release, DEQ’s ongoing obligations include repair and maintenance of remedial infrastructure like the impermeable liner and associated underdrain.Work also includes all components of the sediment cap that covers much of the property below the ordinary high water line of the Willamette River.DEQ continues to maintain the site with annual sampling and general property maintenance. Annual reports, project documents and site information are available on Your DEQ Online and Oregon Records Management Solution.EPA and DEQ perform a review every five years to determine whether the cleanup remedy is functioning properly. The next Five-Year Review is underway and will be published in 2026. ​​

After decades of contamination and a massive cleanup effort, the former McCormick & Baxter site may transform into a scenic public space along the Willamette River.

People are invited to comment through Jan. 30 on the proposal to convert the McCormick & Baxter Superfund site, a former creosote wood treating facility in North Portland, into educational botanical gardens open to the public on the east bank of the Willamette River.

The nonprofit organization Portland Botanical Gardens, which hopes to purchase the 59-acre site, also proposes to develop a greenspace along the waterfront, extending the Willamette River greenway and water trail, and access to the river.

The former McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. property at 6900 N. Edgewater Ave. is adjacent to the University of Portland Franz River Campus and just south of the future Willamette Cove Natural Area.

The once-contaminated facility is considered safe for people, animals and plants after a cleanup project was completed in 2005, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the property is a Superfund site, both agencies will continue environmental monitoring and long-term protections.

The agencies will require the new owner to follow site restrictions, meet monitoring requirements and submit development plans for review.

Portland Botanical Gardens, formed in 2020, has worked toward securing at least $3 million for the initial development and operations of the gardens. The organization has conceptual plans and submitted a proposal to acquire the site, according Matt Taylor, the nonprofit’s executive director.

The Portland Botanical Gardens‘ consent order gives the nonprofit certain liability protections related to the previous contamination in return for providing a substantial public benefit.

The property was last appraised at $2.39 million. DEQ reached an agreement with Portland Botanical Gardens to recover 50% of the fair market value — which is $1.195 million — as partial reimbursement for past cleanup costs. The EPA will negotiate a separate agreement with Portland Botanical Gardens.

If approved, the DEQ payment will go to Oregon’s industrial orphan site fund, which DEQ can use toward further remedial action or habitat improvements to the riparian forest and the site’s rocky beach area, according to DEQ.

Property owner McCormick & Baxter Creosoting, which declared bankruptcy in 1991, will not receive any compensation.

DEQ will consider all written and verbal comments received by Jan. 30 before making a final decision regarding the proposed sale.

People can learn more about the project, ask questions and make comments to DEQ and Portland Botanical Gardens representatives during a virtual public meeting 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8 (register to join on Zoom at deq-oregon-gov.zoom.us).

Two prior comment sessions took place Dec. 11 and Dec. 16.

People can view the documents in person at a DEQ office (700 N.E. Multnomah St., Suite 600 in Portland) or request language interpretation by contacting Sarah Miller at sarah.miller@deq.oregon.gov or 503-863-0561.

History of the site

Flowers and shrubbery grow near a bridge and around a chain-link fence
The McCormick & Baxter creosote plant Superfund site in N. Portland, seen here on Fri., April 26, 2024, may eventually become the location of the Portland Botanical Gardens. The proposed project that would fill the area between Metro’s Willamette Cove property and the University of Portland’s Franz River campus.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

The McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. operated between 1944 and 1991, treating wood products with creosote, pentachlorophenol and inorganic preservatives such as arsenic, copper, chromium and zinc.

The site was heavily contaminated and wastewater from the process was discharged directly to the Willamette River and in upland soils, according to DEQ.

Timeline

1983: DEQ initiated investigations of the site after federal and state cleanup laws were launched in the early 1980s.

1991: McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co. declared bankruptcy.

1992: Due to significant human health and environmental risk, DEQ declared the property as an orphan site since the company responsible for the contamination was unable or unwilling to pay for needed cleanup actions.

DEQ removal measures included demolishing the plant, removing sludge and soil, and extracting creosote from groundwater. Between 1989 and 2011, approximately 6,200 gallons of creosote was removed from groundwater and disposed offsite.

1994: The EPA placed the site on the National Priorities List and designated DEQ as the lead agency for implementing the cleanup while funding for remedial design and construction was provided by EPA.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s: DEQ and EPA conducted preliminary studies and design work, including a cleanup plan and remedial design.

2005: Cleanup was deemed completed. The project included construction of an 18-acre underground groundwater barrier wall to prevent migration of pollution from the site to the river and capping contaminated sediment in the Willamette River.

More than 33,000 tons of soil was removed and replaced by two feet of clean soil across the entire site. Areas with highly contaminated surface soils were removed to a depth of four feet, according to DEQ.

To prevent rainwater from entering the interior of the barrier wall isolating contaminated groundwater, a 16-acre engineered impermeable cap with a stormwater discharge system was placed above the barrier wall footprint.

To protect the cap from erosion, it is covered with an armoring layer made of large rock and articulated concrete blocks. This also included re-grading the riverbank and adding two feet of topsoil to cap the shoreline.

2006: The capped riverbank was planted with native trees and shrubs after the soil was stabilized with the native grasses.

April 2024: Portland Botanical Gardens entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the current property owner.

The prospective purchaser agreement requires Portland Botanical Gardens to take over a portion of the onsite operations and maintenance of the riparian area vegetation, site security and ensuring that the upland cap is not disturbed.

May 2024: DEQ received a legally binding agreement application from Portland Botanical Gardens to purchase and redevelop the property.

Ongoing: According to the Portland Botanical Gardens news release, DEQ’s ongoing obligations include repair and maintenance of remedial infrastructure like the impermeable liner and associated underdrain.

Work also includes all components of the sediment cap that covers much of the property below the ordinary high water line of the Willamette River.

DEQ continues to maintain the site with annual sampling and general property maintenance. Annual reports, project documents and site information are available on Your DEQ Online and Oregon Records Management Solution.

EPA and DEQ perform a review every five years to determine whether the cleanup remedy is functioning properly. The next Five-Year Review is underway and will be published in 2026. ​​

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

Uncharted Waters

Recovered from decades of industrial waste dumping, one river in the nation’s capital is again threatened—this time by federal budget cuts.

“It’s such a different sight than what people expect of the Anacostia River,” says Trey Sherard. The riverkeeper slowly pulls his boat up to the underpass of the Anacostia Railroad Bridge, collapses the boat canopy, and wryly asks if anyone has read The Chronicles of Narnia. Sherard is met with a few yeses and some nos, then says we are about to enter the Anacostia River version of the wardrobe that transports to a magical land. Before us are sunbathing turtles, an osprey nest, and two miles of undeveloped waterfront. The Anacostia River—known to many in Washington, D.C., as a littered and polluted urban waterway —seemingly has a natural beauty to rival rivers anywhere in the United States. Lush green woodlands slope into muddy riverbanks. Wetland grasses sway in the breeze, and the sun glistens off the current. “This section of river here,” says Sherard, “is what we call the epicenter of environmental racism on this river, which is saying a lot because the whole river has often been defined in terms of environmental injustice.” Along the river’s east bank are five historically Black Washington communities: Mayfair, River Terrace, Kenilworth, Parkside, and Eastland Gardens, all boxed in between the river, Kenilworth Park, and the Anacostia Freeway. For decades, these communities have dealt with disinvestment, industrial pollution, and the waste and litter carried by the neglected river. Swimming in the Anacostia was deemed unsafe and made illegal in 1971. The communities surrounding the river have been vocal about these problems since the area was first developed. “It’s not for lack of advocacy by the community, [that the river was neglected],” says Sherard, “but for lack of their message being received by someone held accountable.” At this point in the tour, the boat is located squarely inside D.C., but from the bow, it looks like you’re out in the country. The juxtaposition of the rich greenery from the U.S. National Arboretum and Kenilworth Park with the history of environmental racism of the area is staggering. Sherard, who leads this boat tour as part of his work with the organization Anacostia Riverkeeper, says that the contrast is useful for helping people understand what’s happened here and getting them engaged. “[The river is] this incredible asset and opportunity, even despite all of the abuse that we’ve given to it,” he says. The eight-and-a-half mile Anacostia River is short, but has a long history of supporting human life. The largest of three D.C.-area Native American villages, Nacotchtank, was located along the river, which was called anaquash, meaning “village trading center.” Historians believe Native Americans lived on the river for 10,000 years before being pushed out by European colonialization. Settlers arriving in the early seventeenth century found a river teeming with shad, herring, and perch, and in places it was forty feet deep, leaving plenty of room for large vessels to navigate the waterway. The District’s population boomed during and after the Civil War as newly freed enslaved people moved north and Union soldiers garrisoned there. Over time, silt filled the river bottom from increased runoff, and large ships could no longer navigate through the waters. Its usefulness as a waterway for shipping ended, and many industries treated the river as a waste disposal site. Sewage has proven to be a perennial problem for the Anacostia River. A significant portion of the capital’s sewer system was built before 1900 and is a combined sewer system, which means stormwater and sewage are mixed. This doesn’t cause problems when conditions are stable, but during heavy rainfalls, the system can overflow into nearby waterways, including the Anacostia. These events can cause bacteria levels to spike to unhealthy amounts, giving rise to waterborne illness. As humans continue to drive climate change by rapidly burning fossil fuels, D.C. is seeing more intense rainstorms. The Anacostia River watershed, the area that drains into the main branch of the river, covers 176 square miles of highly urbanized geography. Stormwater, sewage, sediment, and trash all flow into the river, creating a concentrated mix of harmful debris. “You can associate the conditions and health of the river to conditions and health of the areas that border it, and that includes the people who inhabit those areas,” says Dennis Chestnut, a lifelong Washingtonian and resident of Ward 7. “When discussing environmental justice on the Anacostia River, you have to include and focus as much on the communities that border the river.” Chestnut is a master carpenter and vocational educator by profession, and is also a national river hero and environmental activist with a palpable enthusiasm. “The river really got me very interested in science and made me appreciate the outdoors,” he says. His relationship to the river is lifelong, and he has made it a personal goal to help others build one as well. “As a child, it was like an ocean to me,” Chestnut says. In the 1950s and 1960s—before it was outlawed—he learned to swim in the Anacostia and in a tributary near his childhood home. Today that tributary, a stream called Watts Branch, is mostly captured in concrete channels and culverts. For Chestnut and his family, it was like a personal beach, and since it was an inlet, it was safer to swim. “The times that we were in, the reason we were swimming in the stream and in the river was because Washington, D.C., was legally segregated,” says Chestnut. “The closest swimming pool was in a white community and it was segregated. We couldn’t go to that pool. But we had the river.” Chestnut emphasizes that the environmental burdens on the Anacostia River and the communities to its east have not been accidental. He points out that railroad tracks crisscross Ward 7, highway 295 cuts through the middle of the community, and the riverside Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco) plant burned coal and dumped waste in the river for decades, alongside many other polluting industries. Watts Branch flows through Kenilworth Park, which was Kenilworth Dump and Landfill for nearly three decades. The site received municipal waste from the capital, burned trash openly, and received ashes from nearby incinerators, which leached into the river. The dump exposed the nearby community and river to smoke and toxic chemicals. It was one of the few open areas in the communities east of the river, and Chestnut remembers playing at the dump with his friends. In 1968, seven-year-old Kelvin Tyrone Mock burned to death while playing on the trash when winds shifted and engulfed the child in flames. The following day, the mayor ordered open-burning at the dump to stop, but municipal trash continued to fill the site until 1970. “All of those things that we would consider negative impact kinds of things—like the railroad tracks, the freeway, the power plant, the landfill—were located on this side of the city primarily because this was the side where the people of color and poor people lived,” says Chestnut. “This community has been resilient for a long time, having to put up with all of those things.” Earth Conservation Corps (ECC) a youth-driven environmental action organization that works to restore the Anacostia River, has also made enormous strides in helping communities reclaim the river through cleanups and youth programs, but there is much more to be done. “The perception of the Anacostia [to most in Generation Z] right now is still, ‘Nah, it’s dirty, don’t touch it,’ ” says Sonora Phillips, director of programs and partnerships at ECC. Yet, she adds, “Young people are powerful. Getting young people involved in the environment and allowing them to see they can make a difference . . . that’s huge.” Phillips helps students care for raptors; maintain Turtle Beach, one of the last few remaining wetlands along the Anacostia River; and learn about the power of storytelling and environmental education through ECC’s Youth Media Arts program. The ECC program works with youth from many different backgrounds, including students coming from the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. “These are youth who are often counted out, and [now] they’re doing conservation work,” Phillips says. “It’s amazing; I never thought the environment would be the thing that would take young people out of their current [difficult] environment, and it is.” Washington, D.C., has been in a budget crisis for the better part of 2025. The problems started in March when the House of Representatives passed a federal government funding bill that would force the D.C. Council to revert to its 2024 budget parameters. This move left a $1.1 billion gap in a previously balanced budget midway through the financial year. Months later, a fix for the budget has stalled out at the hands of ultraconservatives, with their insistence on more limits on voting rights and abortion. While city officials have added some money back to the budget, many cuts have been made to plug the enormous hole. The budget crisis has resulted in the termination of funding that supported the free educational Anacostia Riverkeeper boat tours. There are also now no funds for the organization to monitor water quality, or to maintain trash traps that capture floating debris in the water. “We’re coming to an inflection point now,” says Sherard. “We need to keep moving forward and not risk losing ground as we lose investment.” Under the Trump Administration, the nonprofit landscape has entered uncharted waters with organizations facing the possibility of losing government funding or their tax-exempt status if they are at odds with the White House. For organizations that rely on government grants, like Anacostia Riverkeeper, this can be a devastating blow to operations. Sherard says the administration is relentlessly attacking environmental initiatives and organizations. “Philanthropy largely backed out of this watershed a little while back after it got it from ‘worst’ to ‘OK,’ ” says Sherard. Anacostia Riverkeeper has seen a small uptick in philanthropic donations, but not enough to cover foundational needs. “We hope that big philanthropy will step in while clearly the government is unable to do so, but we don’t know, and that uncertainty is a big stressor.” “The river is this beautiful green and blue way through the middle of Northeast and Southeast D.C.,” he adds. “Someone who hasn’t seen it firsthand can’t really truly understand that.” While political shifts have disrupted Anacostia Riverkeeper, momentum continues forward through new and old partnerships, with a swim event still set as a long-term goal. Since the swimming ban in 1971, the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment amended the rules in 2018 to permit single-day swim events if certain healthy conditions are met. There is no date on the calendar for a 2025 swim event, as the permitting process can take months, but Anacostia Riverkeeper is hoping to host an event in 2026. Chestnut is excited by the prospect. “I still have the same attachment to the river as I had as a child, and I hope to be able to swim in it again,” he says with a big smile. “This community, full of natural resources, has done a lot for me and I just feel so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be here and still be here.” Despite the recent financial setbacks and a grim political landscape, Chestnut is heartened by the efforts of his community in Ward 7 to restore the river. “I feel good about where I see things,” Chestnut says. “If we keep going in this direction, and get future generations involved, it’s going to be the kind of river we should have in the nation’s capital.”  This story was produced with support from the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative at Wake Forest University. Paul Gordon is an environmental journalist and urban forester. His pieces appear in The Nation, Grist, Sierra magazine, Belt Magazine, and In These Times. He has worked for the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, National Audubon Society. Read more by Paul Gordon January 2, 2026 5:30 PM

Waste
Water
Chemicals

What your cheap clothes cost the planet

A global supply chain built for speed is leaving behind waste, toxins, and a trail of environmental wreckage.

The Atacama desert in Chile is one of the most beautiful and forbidding places on Earth, so dry that it’s sometimes used by scientists to test run Mars missions. Most years the area sees less than half a centimeter of rain, but this past September unusually heavy precipitation brought forth a desert bloom, blanketing the ground with delicate purple flowers that disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared. It was a rare treat for locals used to grimmer ornamentation: Since 2001, colorful mountains of used clothing have been the main feature growing across the Atacama. By the time the largest mound was set on fire in 2022, it contained some 100,000 tons of discarded fabric, roughly the weight of an aircraft carrier. Today, piles like it continue to grow. This fashion graveyard has become so large that some outlets have dubbed it the “great fashion garbage patch.” It owes its growth to the nearby duty-free port of Iquique, where Chile imports all manner of international goods without customs or taxes — including heaps of used clothing from the United States, Europe, and Asia. While the best items are resold to international markets, overwhelming volumes of cheap fast-fashion pieces don’t make the cut. Instead, they are dumped in the desert — an open secret that the government largely ignores. The burnings, whether they’re intended to destroy the evidence or make more space, fill nearby towns with smoky, unhealthy air. Women sort through used clothes amid the tons that are discarded in the Atacama desert, in 2021 in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. Martin Bernetti / AFP via Getty Images Activists have been fighting against this desert dumping for years, documenting the burnings and suing both the federal and local governments to stop it. But the real blame for Chile’s mess lies beyond the country’s borders. From the moment these garments are spun from fibers to the time of their undignified disposal, they are part of a vast global pollution machine — one that has grown massively as the world economy has globalized and factories have begun pumping out ever-cheaper, ever-faster styles to customers half a world away.  This new hyper-vast, hyper-fast-fashion system is phenomenally destructive. Today, the clothing trade generates some 170 billion garments a year — roughly half of which wind up being thrown out within that year, and almost all of which despoil the world’s land, air, and seas. In the process, it generates as much as 10 percent of all planet-warming emissions, making it the second-largest industrial polluter, while also holding the distinction of being the world’s second-largest consumer and polluter of water. When all its many offenses are cataloged and counted, fashion is the third-most-polluting industry on the planet, after energy and food.  Things weren’t always this bad. While fashion has long left trails of environmental devastation in its wake — just ask the poor snowy egret, sacrificed by the thousands to decorate a generation of women’s hats — it was kept in relative check, even as globalization ramped up, by a 1974 trade agreement known as the Multi Fibre Arrangement. This agreement allowed nations to regulate the number of textile and clothing imports allowed into their countries, thereby protecting domestic production. But its expiration on January 1, 2005, essentially heralded fashion’s NAFTA moment. Low-cost goods from countries such as China and Bangladesh began flooding the United States and the European Union, which undercut domestic production in developing countries by saturating those markets with used clothing. The loosening of the century-old de minimis loophole in 2016, which allowed packages under $800 to enter the United States without tariffs, allowed Shein and Temu, the notorious Chinese e-commerce giants, to grow exponentially. Some observers of the fashion industry have speculated that it might be on the cusp of a reckoning. The elimination of the de minimis exemption, together with Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, has sent shock waves through the industry, rattling U.S. consumers — and with them, major brands like Shein and Temu. Both have already begun to compensate for the drop in U.S. sales by redirecting their efforts toward Europe and Australia while moving their operations to other countries. Other companies, meanwhile, have simply begun offsetting their losses by trimming their sustainability efforts, raising serious fears of an even faster race to the bottom. All of which raises the questions: How did we get into this situation? And, more important, how do we get out?  The typical fast-fashion jeans are worn only seven times before being tossed, giving the garment a carbon footprint that is more than 10 times higher per wear than traditional denim. Olga Pankova / Getty Images Step 1: A dirty, bloated underbelly To understand how our garments got so noxious, it helps to go back to the beginning: to how our clothes become clothes in the first place. Take any item of attire — from Lululemon athleisure leggings to the summer of 2024’s viral Uniqlo baby tee; from the swankiest gowns to the most nondescript knockoff jeans — and the story is almost always the same: Most clothes start their lives deep in the ground, either as seeds of cotton or in the nearly 342 million barrels of crude oil that go into the making of synthetic fabrics every year. Most of the problems start with one of these two origin stories. Today, synthetic fibers make up nearly 70 percent of all textile production. Polyester has become particularly ubiquitous across styles and brands, whether those brands are fast-fashion behemoths or rarefied luxury houses. Its soft, stretchy nature can mimic traditional textiles or be engineered into modern, high-performance meshes. Its low cost — just half the price of cotton in some instances — makes it an attractive option for brands and suppliers looking to snag profits while offering lower prices to customers.  But beneath its malleable folds lies a nasty business. Commercialized by the chemical giant DuPont in the mid-1900s, the process of making polyester involves superheating two petroleum-based chemicals — ethylene glycol (also used in antifreeze) and terephthalic acid (commonly used in plastic bottles) — and extruding the mixture through tiny holes to form yarn. In 2015, this process was estimated to produce as much annual carbon pollution as 180 coal-fired power plants. As the resulting polyfabrics are woven, washed, treated, and sewn into garments, they continually shed plastic microfibers. Meanwhile, plant-based fibers like linen and cotton, which currently make up a quarter of global textile production, come with their own complications. Compared to other major crops, cotton is considered resource-intensive, earning a reputation among environmental organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Justice Foundation, as particularly thirsty, based on the amount of water it consumes, and dirty, based on the quantity of chemical pesticides used to grow it. The cotton fiber needed to manufacture a classic jeans-and-tee outfit requires roughly 500 gallons of irrigation water (and an additional 1,500 gallons of rainwater) to grow. And while cotton takes up a little less than 3 percent of all farmable land, its production accounts for some 5 percent of all pesticide sales and 10 percent of insecticide sales. Other, less common fashion fabrics, such as viscose (made from the pulp of more than 100 million trees per year), come with their own environmental trade-offs — a 2023 report found that nearly a third of those trees came from old-growth or endangered forests. Over the past decade, blended fabrics that mix various types of synthetic fibers and organic ones have become increasingly common, creating an engineering headache for recycling initiatives and spreading plastic’s presence ever further.  The environmental impact of your jacket Higher impact: Quilted jackets stuffed with down — generally goose feathers — have been standard-issue for the last century. But polyester fill has begun to dominate the market, and manufacturers have relied on a toxic group of chemicals known as PFAS to waterproof the jackets. These “forever chemicals” don’t degrade naturally, and they have infiltrated drinking water, farmland, and the human body. Down carries its own baggage: It often involves plucking feathers from birds while they’re still alive. Lower impact: Brands have begun developing alternatives to PFAS in anticipation of bans that went into effect in 2025 in California and New York. Patagonia and Vaude have phased out PFAS use entirely, while Gore-Tex, Fjällräven, and Sympatex all offer PFAS-free options. Patagonia, Houdini, and Cotopaxi have also revamped their process for making synthetic fill to use recycled and plant-based materials and produce less emissions.   The environmental impact of your T-shirt Higher impact: Growing, weaving, dyeing, and manufacturing cotton into a T-shirt can require more than 700 gallons of water — enough for a single person to drink for 900 days. Cotton cultivation also requires heavy chemical use; some estimates indicate the crop accounts for roughly 16 percent of all insecticides sold worldwide. Lower impact: Hemp-jersey blends can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of a T-shirt. Hemp has low water needs, requiring as much as 90 percent less water than cotton. And because the plant sequesters a lot of CO2 as it grows, its overall carbon footprint is significantly lower than that of other fibers. Step 2: Toxic textiles Once the requisite materials have been grown, harvested, or extracted from DuPont’s primordial ooze, they’re turned into fabric, bleached, and dyed. This is an enormously toxic process that’s estimated to be responsible for 20 percent of water pollution worldwide. Pesticides used to grow cotton are flushed into waterways, along with bleach and the heavy metals — such as cadmium, chromium, lead, and arsenic — found in dye. The World Bank has identified at least 72 toxic chemicals involved in the standard industrial dyeing process, and once those chemicals make their way into aquifers, the knock-on effects are dire.  Dark sludge from clothing factories fills nearby lakes and streams, blocking the light needed for photosynthesis and destroying aquatic ecosystems. Even rinsing synthetic fabrics sends microplastics racing down the drain, and experts estimate that about half a million metric tons of microplastics make their way into the oceans each year — equivalent to the weight of 50 Eiffel Towers. Some of this contaminated water is then reused to irrigate local crops, causing health problems for the surrounding community, reducing crop yields, and harming biodiversity.  The Citarum River, in West Java, Indonesia, is a toxic testament to this process — the transformation of raw fabric into the pretty hues and bright patterns that make our wardrobes pop. Once a pristine waterway that flowed past cozy farming villages and bustling cities, it became a dumping site for hundreds of textile mills in the 1980s. As more and more arose along its banks, they spilled their waste directly into the river and its tributaries, staining them blue, red, yellow, and black and saturating them with mercury, lead, chromium, and other chemicals. For years, people who live near the river have reported skin rashes and intestinal problems along with more serious conditions like renal failure and tumors — and while the Indonesian government vowed in 2018 to make the river’s waters clean enough to drink by 2025, that deadline has come and almost gone. The river remains one of the most polluted in the world. Piles of rags sorted by color await recycling in a textile factory in Valencia Province, Spain. Only 1 percent of used clothes are recycled and used to manufacture new clothes. Jose A. Bernat Bacete / Getty Images Step 3: How fast is too fast? Once the clothes have been manufactured and are ready to be shipped, fashion can generally be sorted into several buckets: fast, faster, and ultra-fast. More traditional brands like Levi’s, Gap, and Nike will design a collection of apparel in advance of a season and then commission the production of their garments to factories in other countries, thus starting the clothing’s journey along a lengthy supply chain. According to McKinsey, the lag time between design and sale can be as little as 12 weeks. Fast-fashion brands like Zara, H&M, and Forever 21 move through “microseasons” still more quickly, releasing dozens of collections per year. And ultra-fast-fashion brands like Shein, Temu, and Cider can design, manufacture, and ship a new garment in a matter of days.  All this speed means different kinds of waste, depending on which bucket a garment falls into. To know exactly how much of each garment to make, traditional and fast-fashion retailers try to predict demand. But because each individual blouse, skirt, and jacket requires its own bespoke assembly line, factories incentivize retailers to buy in bulk, which lowers the brand’s cost per item and helps the supplier stay efficient. It’s a tricky balance, but with profits and savings in mind, the default is to order too much. If you’re curious about which brands might be overstocking offenders, keep an eye out for frequent sales or steep discounts. In 2022, the apparel giant Asos was left with over $1 billion of unsold stock after sales dropped from the previous year. It struck a deal with a resale company to sell its remaining stock at a heavy discount. In the same year, Gap Inc. — which owns brands including Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Athleta — went on a discounting marathon, with multiple sales events in a row to trim down its warehouse bloat. Luxury fashion brands, which are known for destroying their excess merchandise to maintain their products’ exclusivity and value, are also responsible for the largest Black Friday discounts, with up to 46 percent of stock marked down in previous years.   Available statistics suggest that this global surplus could amount to anywhere between 8 billion and 60 billion garments a year, as reported in The Guardian. And that’s not including the textiles that never get turned into clothing. The destiny of all that material varies: Some of it is sold at a discount or recycled, but much of it winds up in landfills or incinerated. A discarded shoe floats in the waters off Okinawa, Japan, in June. The footwear industry accounts for about 1.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than half that of the airline industry. D3_plus D.Naruse @ Japan / Getty Images Paradoxically, the new ultra-fast-fashion models embraced by brands like Shein are “more efficient,” according to Valérie Moatti, a former professor of fashion supply-chain management and strategy. Shein, for instance, claims to make only 100 to 200 copies of each garment, with unsold inventory in the single digits — thanks, largely, to its data-forward business model, which leverages predictive AI algorithms to identify “microtrends” in fashion. Yet that efficiency creates its own problems. In 2023, Shein nudged out Zara for the title of biggest polluter in fast fashion. Shein’s e-commerce model, while speedy, relies on small-package air shipment, which is highly carbon-intensive, instead of the bulk ocean shipping typically used by fashion brands. With up to 10,000 new items released for sale on its site every day, Shein has flooded the U.S. postal system with as many as 900,000 packages a day. This air shipping accounts for up to 38 percent of Shein’s emissions, which nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023 to 16 million metric tons of CO2. By contrast, Inditex, which owns Zara and uses primarily sea and road shipping, reported that it released a little over 2 million metric tons of CO2 transporting its products in the same year. The environmental impact of your jeans Higher impact: New denim jeans, traditionally made mostly of cotton, carry many of the same environmental burdens as a cotton T-shirt. In recent years, elastic textures made from synthetic blends have added microplastics to the denim equation. Washing a single pair of jeans can release up to 56,000 microfibers into wastewater systems. They spread from there into the environment. Lower impact: Buying secondhand jeans can cut carbon costs by 90 percent, while cold-washing and and line-drying may reduce the carbon cost by 70 percent compared with machine-washing. Extending the lifespan of your garments by just nine months can reduce their carbon, water, and waste footprints by 20 percent. The environmental impact of your leggings Higher impact: Most exercise leggings are synthetic, generally made up of roughly 85 percent polyester and 15 percent Lycra (commonly known as spandex). This means they’re a fossil fuel product and will shed microplastics when washed or worn. Lower impact: Since 2019, the production of activewear made from recycled polyester has increased by 80 percent. Buying from brands like Puma, Patagonia, and Adidas that use recycled polyester may help curb the carbon cost of your outfit. To prevent your clothes from shedding microfibers, the company Guppyfriend offers an eco-friendly washing bag. Step 4: From closet to landfill Once the spoils of someone’s latest shopping spree have found a home in their closet, they likely won’t remain there for long. In 2024, researchers found that the average fast-fashion pair of jeans is worn only seven times, giving them a carbon footprint 11 times higher per wear than traditional denim pants. A typical pair of jeans is kept, on average, for four years before being tossed. Even when clothes are donated, they often end up burned or in a landfill, where they belch greenhouse gases, like methane, as they decay. Anything made with synthetic fibers, like stretchy “denim,” see-through mesh, and athletic wear, sheds plastic microfibers into soil and waterways. And while California and New York have banned the toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS in apparel and textiles, decades of their use in waterproofing outdoor wear means that our discarded rain jackets are leaching the pollutants too.  “In the United States, we consume the most apparel in the world, and so we are also the largest exporters and waste creators of fashion,” said Rachel Kibbe, who leads American Circular Textiles, a coalition that lobbies for fashion policies that are “sustainable, profitable, and resilient” in the U.S. “It’s a missed opportunity to recapture resources that we’ve already put a lot of time, labor, energy, water, and chemicals into.”  Kibbe’s organization is at the forefront of the emerging movement around “circularity,” a term that refers to a closed-loop supply chain that continually repurposes clothing. Touted by international nonprofits, major brands, and advocates alike, the word has become the de facto slogan for those promoting clothing recycling. For Kibbe, circularity means extending the life of the materials as long as possible. Last year, her coalition provided technical feedback on a California bill that requires manufacturers to manage the recycling and reuse of their textiles. The law, passed in September 2024, mirrors a flurry of similar fast-fashion waste regulations in the European Union. But turning old rags into new garments poses a steep technical challenge. While features like zippers and buttons create their own difficulties for recycling clothes into new fabrics, the bigger issue is the industry’s growing reliance on blended fabrics — an intricate mix of synthetic and natural fibers that are difficult to pull back apart.  Although the technology exists to separate these fibers for reuse, it remains in its early stages and is costly to scale. In 2024, Renewcell, a textile-recycling company that partnered with major brands like H&M and Levi’s, went bankrupt. The environmental impact of your leather boots Higher impact: The leather used in shoes and handbags depends on cattle ranching, which is the primary driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Many vegan-leather options consist of synthesized plastics, which come with a heavy chemical burden. Soles are often made of synthetic rubber, a fossil fuel product that produces three to six tons of CO2 per ton of polymer material. Meanwhile, natural rubber has caused the deforestation of more than 4 million hectares of tropical forests over the past three decades. Lower impact: There’s a limited number of sustainability-minded shoe brands. Experts say that the most sustainable option for buying leather are stores that use local small-scale suppliers or source the hide as a byproduct from fair-trade farmers. In the future, other alternatives may be made from fungi. In 2023, the biotech start up MycoWorks announced the successful production of the world’s first commercial-scale mycelium biomaterial, which has 80 percent lower emissions than cow leather. The environmental impact of your running shoes Higher impact: A single running shoe contains as many as 65 discrete parts that require 360 processing steps to assemble, which is often done using coal-powered machines. On average, making a pair of shoes emits the equivalent of 30 pounds of carbon dioxide, over two-thirds of which come from the manufacturing process. Lower impact: Companies like Allbirds are producing new types of biofoam materials made from sugarcane and a bioplastic made with methane waste. In 2023, Allbirds introduced its MO.Onshot sneaker, a “net-zero carbon shoe.” Other companies, like Saye, are also using alternative biomaterials, such as plant-based leathers made from cactus, corn, and bamboo yarn. The circularity movement isn’t an isolated phenomenon. As the outrage over fashion’s many environmental faux pas has grown, so have the efforts to force the industry to mend its ways — through protests, the rise of a robust secondhand clothing market, and textile recycling regulations in the European Union and California. And the industry, ever image-conscious, has started to listen. Many historic offenders like Shein, H&M, and Burberry have set voluntary sustainability goals, including using recycled fabrics, reducing freshwater use, limiting packaging, and cutting emissions. But these efforts have often been slow and stuttering — more greenwashing than greening. And even at their most rigorous, they have come up against a problem that goes to the very heart of the modern fashion industry: speed. At the same time that brands have begun ramping up their sustainability efforts, many have also begun speeding up their production cycle, churning out ever more clothes at ever faster rates. The result is a fundamental incongruity: an industry hurtling forward at breakneck speed, even as it tries to change course. Or as Kristy Caylor, who has founded several sustainable apparel brands, including the clothing-recycling startup Trashie, observed: “We all know people who are doing a much better job, but overall, we’re still in the speedy cycle. If we’re still consuming at a rapid rate and the materials are better, but we’re still throwing it all out, have we really done a better job?” Lynda Grose, a designer and professor of design and critical studies at California College for the Arts, agrees that it’s too easy right now to produce new clothes. Even ethical fashion brands produce a great deal of waste. “I would say that the entire industry adopts fast-fashion tactics,” Grose said. “I don’t want fast fashion to be used as a scapegoat — the whole industry needs a magnifying glass.” A selection of used clothes hang on racks in a secondhand shop. Each year, roughly 700,000 tons of used clothing from the U.S. ends up in foreign markets in countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, and Chile. Triocean / Getty Images The industry, which remains largely unregulated, also can’t really be trusted to police itself. To slow the warp-speed pace of modern fashion requires more than ad hoc efforts by individual brands. Tariffs, waste quotas, and taxes on waste could all cut down on the fashion industry’s seemingly intractable garbage issues. And a handful of places are already trying. In 2024, the European Union introduced rules banning large companies from destroying unsold textiles and footwear, while France recently approved legislation that imposes a mix of taxes, advertising bans, and sustainability standards on fast-fashion giants. And while some brands might bristle, many of these efforts — such as incentivizing clothing repair and recycling — could benefit the companies as well as the consumer.  For Lilah Horwitz, the director of content and marketing at Eileen Fisher Renew, which saves and repurposes old Eileen Fisher clothing, sustainability is about taking responsibility for the full life cycle of the clothes, even after they pass into the consumer’s hands. “We will take them back, no matter the condition, and we’re going to spend years trying to figure out what is the best thing to do with them,” she said. The catch is that “you have to make a good product the first time. You make something that hopefully lasts, and then you build the infrastructure and the systems to keep it lasting.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What your cheap clothes cost the planet on Dec 15, 2025.

Waste
Activism
Chemicals

The Guardian view on waste: the festive season is a good time to think about rubbish | Editorial

Weak regulation is to blame for disastrous failures in relation to pollution. But there are solutions if people get behind themA study suggesting that as many as 168m light-up Christmas ornaments and similar items could be thrown out in a single year, in the UK, is concerning if not surprising in light of longstanding challenges around recycling rates and waste reduction. Even if the actual figure is lower, there is no question that battery-powered and electrical toys, lights and gifts are proliferating as never before. Despite a great deal of commentary aimed at dialling down consumption over the festive season, especially surplus packaging and rubbish, strings of disposable lights and flashing figures have gained in popularity. Homes, front gardens and shopping streets grow sparklier by the year.Batteries and electrical devices present particular difficulties when it comes to disposal, because they cause fires. But they are just one part of a more general problem of excessive waste – and weak regulatory oversight. British plastic waste exports rose by 5% in 2024 to nearly 600,000 tonnes. A new report on plastics from the Pew Charitable Trusts warns that global production is expected to rise by 52% by 2040 – to 680m tonnes – outstripping the capacity of waste management systems around the world. Continue reading...

A study suggesting that as many as 168m light-up Christmas ornaments and similar items could be thrown out in a single year, in the UK, is concerning if not surprising in light of longstanding challenges around recycling rates and waste reduction. Even if the actual figure is lower, there is no question that battery-powered and electrical toys, lights and gifts are proliferating as never before. Despite a great deal of commentary aimed at dialling down consumption over the festive season, especially surplus packaging and rubbish, strings of disposable lights and flashing figures have gained in popularity. Homes, front gardens and shopping streets grow sparklier by the year.Batteries and electrical devices present particular difficulties when it comes to disposal, because they cause fires. But they are just one part of a more general problem of excessive waste – and weak regulatory oversight. British plastic waste exports rose by 5% in 2024 to nearly 600,000 tonnes. A new report on plastics from the Pew Charitable Trusts warns that global production is expected to rise by 52% by 2040 – to 680m tonnes – outstripping the capacity of waste management systems around the world.Some retailers in the UK and elsewhere have cut down on packaging. There is a booming online trade in secondhand clothes. But the biggest recent rows about waste in the UK have been about sewage, not consumer goods. An overhaul of water industry regulation is meant to sort this out, following a review in the summer. There is still a high likelihood that the worst-performing company, Thames Water, could collapse into special administration.But Ofwat is not the only regulator to face criticism for its performance in relation to pollution and waste. The Environment Agency is under growing fire as the problem of illegal rubbish dumping has moved from being a local issue in a handful of locations to a national one.In October, the House of Lords environment committee called for the government to urgently review its approach to this “critically under-prioritised” problem. An illegal dump at Hoad’s Wood in Kent is being cleaned up at a cost of £15m. But six similar sites in England are known to the Environment Agency. Campaigners believe that the situation is in danger of spiralling if enforcement efforts are not rapidly scaled up.Discarded strings of battery-powered fairy lights might seem insignificant in the context of vast heaps of toxic waste, or the 3.6m hours of raw sewage spills for which the water industry in England was responsible last year. But environmental organisations are right to draw attention to the role of consumers as well as industry. The Environment Agency ought to have been empowered in the context of the climate crisis – not undermined and underfunded as it was under the Tories. But individuals can make a difference when it comes to waste, both in their decisions about what to buy, keep and get rid of – and in their political opinions and choices.Another report, published by the consultancy Hybrid Economics last month, said the UK could end its reliance on plastic waste exports, and create 5,400 new jobs, if it invested in up to 15 new recycling facilities. The lights on buildings and trees are cheering in the run-up to holidays, but we shouldn’t ignore what happens when they are turned off.

Waste
Pollution
Crisis

UK and Europe’s hidden landfills at risk of leaking toxic waste into water supplies

Exclusive: Rising flood risks driven by climate change could release chemicals from ageing sites – posing threats to ecosystems‘I kept smelling a horrible nasty smell’: the risks of England’s old dumping groundsThousands of landfills across the UK and Europe sit in floodplains, posing a potential threat to drinking water and conservation areas if toxic waste is released into rivers, soils and ecosystems, it can be revealed.The findings are the result of the first continent-wide mapping of landfills, conducted by the Guardian, Watershed Investigations and Investigate Europe.Disclaimer: This dataset may contain duplicate records. Duplicates can arise from multiple data sources, repeated entries, or variations in data collection processes. While efforts have been made to identify and reduce duplication, some records may remain. Continue reading...

Thousands of landfills across the UK and Europe sit in floodplains, posing a potential threat to drinking water and conservation areas if toxic waste is released into rivers, soils and ecosystems, it can be revealed.The findings are the result of the first continent-wide mapping of landfills, conducted by the Guardian, Watershed Investigations and Investigate Europe.Patrick Byrne, of Liverpool John Moores University, said: “With increasing frequency and magnitudes of floods and erosion from climate change, there’s a greater risk of these wastes washing into our environment.“This includes physical waste like plastics and building materials, but also toxic metals and chemicals such as Pfas [‘forever chemicals’] and PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls].”Kate Spencer, professor of environmental geochemistry at Queen Mary University, said: “We’ve identified wide-ranging wastes at an eroding coastal landfill [in Tilbury] including what looked like hospital blood bags, and we are talking about tens of thousands of sites that if they aren’t lined and are at flood risk, then there’s multiple ways for it to get into groundwater, surface water and the food chain.”Across the EU there are estimated to be up to 500,000 landfills. Roughly 90% of them, including 22,000 sites in the UK, predate pollution control regulations such as landfill linings to prevent leaching. Modern landfills which are well managed are likely to pose a low risk.More than 61,000 landfills have been identified across Europe, with 28% located in areas vulnerable to flooding. Modelling indicates the true number of flood‑risk sites could be as high as 140,000. This mapping effort, based on requests for landfill data from 10 countries and supplemented with open-source information, highlights a deeper issue: EU institutions lack centralised landfill records, while data from individual member states remains fragmented, inconsistent and often inaccessible.“We have inadequate records, differences in ways of categorising these sites and that makes it really difficult to deal with,” said Spencer.“It’s the worst possible scenario. Most landfills will be fine, but you only need a small number of sites which contain very toxic chemicals to be a problem. We just don’t know which ones.”More than half of the mapped landfills are in areas where groundwater fails to meet chemical quality standards, suggesting the landfills may in some cases have contributed to the contamination.The EU landfill directive, adopted in 1999, banned unlined landfills and created strict waste acceptance criteria. But before this there were few or no pollution containment measures.Many older sites across the UK and Europe were built before modern protections. Photograph: Ashley Cooper/Global Warming Images/Alamy“There could be many other sources of pollution, such as farming and industry, but one of the main ways chemicals migrate away from landfills is through groundwater,” said Byrne.Byrne found leachate leaking from the historic landfill at Newgate nature reserve in Wilmslow, Cheshire, into a small stream. His tests found toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” at 20 times the acceptable levels for drinking water. In Greece, tests found levels of Pfas many times above drinking water standards, as well as mercury and cadmium leaching into the Nedontas river from the former Maratholaka landfill site in the Taygetos mountains, which are visited by thousands of hikers every year. The local mayor of Kalamata says the site has ceased to operate since June 2023 and that “there is currently no evidence or data to substantiate any environmental impact from the operation of the site”.Some of these waters could be sources of drinking water and analysis found almost 10,000 landfills in drinking water zones in France, the UK, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. More than 4,000 of these are historic landfills in England and Wales and are therefore unlikely to have pollution controls. It was not possible to confirm whether landfills in Europe predated regulations or not.“We don’t and won’t know how much risk to human health and our drinking water there is until you can identify where all the landfills are, what is in them, whether they’re leaching and if treatment processes are filtering them out” said Byrne.A spokesperson for the European Commission said that “under the drinking water directive the quality of the water has to be ensured ‘at the tap’ in the whole EU. The directive includes several parameters to be monitored and the corresponding limit values have to be complied with. In case of exceedances of these limit values, member states must ensure that the necessary remedial action is taken.”In the UK, water companies undertake risk assessments and monitoring of their public water abstractions under regulatory guidelines.Landfills that are most visibly at risk of exposure are those along the coast. The analysis found 335 landfills in coastal erosion zones in England, Wales and France, and 258 landfills across Europe within 200 metres of the coast, which could be at risk of erosion or exposure from storm surges.“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Spencer, who is helping the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to rank the most high-risk landfills out of 1,200 identified priority sites in England and Wales. She tested two eroding landfills on the coast and found Lynemouth in the north-east released elevated concentrations of arsenic, and Lyme Regis in the south-west discharged high levels of lead, both of which could cause ecological harm.“We now need to understand the potential risks of climate change and associated pollution release at all our historic landfill sites, not just the coastal ones,” she said, adding that money will be needed to tackle these sites.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 promotion“Essentially we are all living on a garbage dump,” said Spencer, who explained that about 80% of the British population lives within 2km of known landfill sites, and disproportionately in the most deprived parts of the country.A report from the UK’s Health Security Agency last year concluded that living close to a well-managed municipal active or closed landfill site does not pose a significant risk to human health, although the picture for historic sites is less clear due to the lack of data.Wildlife may also be at risk, as more than 2,000 European landfills are in protected conservation areas.“We know plastics are accumulating in wildlife, humans and environments and there’s emerging evidence of negative health impacts,” said Byrne.“A key thing with chemical pollution is where the chemical leachate goes. We have important wetlands around these areas, so if the leachate goes there it could accumulate in wildlife.”Illegal waste dumping is also a significant problem, which Europol has identified as one of Europe’s fastest-growing areas of organised crime. In February, Croatian authorities arrested 13 people suspected of illegally dumping at least 35,000 tonnes of waste from Italy, Slovenia and Germany in Croatia, generating a profit of at least €4m for the criminals.In England, Environment Agency data shows 137 open investigations into illegal dumps, involving more than 1m cubic metres of material.In the Campania region of southern Italy, illegal toxic waste dumping by the mafia has been blamed for the increased death and disease rates in the area.In England and Wales, at the current pace of use our remaining landfill capacity could run out in about 2050. New sites often face environmental concerns and public opposition.An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “Our job is to protect people and the environment, and we are working closely with the landfill industry, water companies and across government to better understand the impacts from Pfas chemicals in landfills.“Environment Agency teams are undertaking a multi-year programme to improve evidence about the sources of Pfas pollution in England. Alongside this, we are also running further studies to investigate the potential contribution of Pfas in landfill leachate to a limited number of sewage works.”A Defra spokesperson said: “We want to prevent waste from occurring in the first place, but where waste occurs, we need to manage it in the most appropriate way.“We are committed to reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill, supported through our collection and packaging reforms. Alongside this, the forthcoming circular economy growth plan will outline measures to drive greater reuse and recycling, safeguarding the value of our resources and preventing the nation’s waste going to landfill.” Disclaimer: This dataset may contain duplicate records. Duplicates can arise from multiple data sources, repeated entries, or variations in data collection processes. While efforts have been made to identify and reduce duplication, some records may remain.

Waste
Water
Climate

UK can create 5,400 jobs if it stops plastic waste exports, report finds

Campaigners say closure of loophole making it cheaper to export rather than recycle will boost circular economyThe UK could end its reliance on exporting plastic waste by 2030 to support the creation of 5,400 new jobs and take responsibility for the environmental impact of its waste, according to research.The report said up to 15 new recycling facilities could be built by the end of the decade, attracting more than £800m of private investment. The increase in capacity would help generate almost £900m of economic value every year, providing at least £100m in new tax revenues annually. Continue reading...

The UK could end its reliance on exporting plastic waste by 2030 to support the creation of 5,400 new jobs and take responsibility for the environmental impact of its waste, according to research.The report said up to 15 new recycling facilities could be built by the end of the decade, attracting more than £800m of private investment. The increase in capacity would help generate almost £900m of economic value every year; providing at least £100m of new tax revenues annually.The report by Hybrid Economics comes as Britain’s plastic exports rose by 5% in 2024 to nearly 600,000 tonnes of waste.Exporting plastic creates environmental problems for many countries that receive it, as they do not have the ability to recycle it. It also, the report argues, removes valuable feedstock for a British recycling industry.Campaigners want the loophole that makes it cheaper to export plastic waste rather than recycle it in the UK, closed.Exports have soared in the first part of this year to Indonesia in particular – a country struggling with an environmental crisis from plastic pollution – amounting to more than 24,000 tonnes.The report said that by exporting the unprocessed plastic waste it produces, the UK is evading its responsibility to deal with its own waste and was denying itself an economic opportunity.The Guardian revealed last month that, in the past two years, 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down owing to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap products from Asia.Neville Hill, partner at Hybrid Economics, which produced the report, said the UK was only using half of its potential for recycling plastic waste. He said: “Ending exports of unprocessed plastic packaging waste by 2030 would allow the UK to take control of its environmental responsibilities and seize a clear economic opportunity.“Our analysis shows the sector can expand significantly with no call on public funds, provided government sets the right framework.”The way payments are made up at present incentivises the export of plastic waste, rather than encouraging businesses to keep it in the UK to be recycled.James McLeary, the managing director of Biffa Polymers, which commissioned the report, said the company had recycled 10bn plastic HDPE milk bottles in the last 20 years. He described this as a circular economy success story.“The lesson is simple. When the right conditions are in place, UK recycling grows, investment follows and the environmental and economic benefits build year after year. The UK can replicate that success across all plastic packaging and take responsibility for processing its own waste onshore.”The report is calling for an increase in the plastic packaging tax, which is imposed on producers who fail to include at least 30% of recycled plastic in their products, to 50% and a total phasing out of exports of unprocessed plastic packaging waste.

Waste
Business
Government

Suggested Viewing

My Journey Across the Ocean

A short animated film about crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a small sailboat and discovering that even where humans have not yet explored, trash usually finds a way of getting there first—even in the middle of the ocean.

Animation
Waste
Student

Kingdom of Waste

Our garbage accumulates and gives life to a plastic monster. We wish his reign to be short. It is probably time to think over how we produce and consume to pollute less.

Waste
Pollution
Family

Keeper of the Creek

“If you’ve ever thought ‘Someone should do something about that litter problem’, remember, you’re someone.” Joel Goldes has visited the creek in his suburban Southern California community nearly every day. And for the past 10 years, he’s been picking up litter, trapping invasive crayfish, opening blocked channels, and testifying at local hearings – often the lone voice in support of the under-appreciated ecosystem near his home.

Waste
Water
Inspirational

Green Waste

What if every person could actually make an impact on the world? “Green Waste” takes an in-depth look at the process of recycling and waste management in the community of Flagstaff. From recycling plastic bags, to re-using glass bottles, from recycling hazardous waste to the efforts of local businesses, the film shows how every contribution, no matter how small, can collectively make the difference for a better tomorrow. Filmed and Produced under the Emerging Filmmakers Program for youth filmmakers.

Waste
Business
Solutions

Paradise Island

Every year, one million tourists arrive in Boracay to get away from reality… but what is the reality for those who live there and cannot escape it? Documentary filmmaker Kat Jayme travels to Boracay, the crown jewel of the Philippines and her family’s favorite vacation spot — but this time she is not on holiday. With the help of the local children of the island, who make sandcastles for money, she discovers what life is really like on Paradise Island.

Youth
Waste
Documentary

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