Rethinking Packaging With Purpose: A RENEWables Podcast Spotlight on EcoEnclose
Did you know that packaging waste accounts for nearly 30% of total U.S. waste annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency? That's a staggering number—and it doesn't even begin to capture the global scale of the problem.
As businesses large and small continue to explore more sustainable practices, one area that's increasingly under the microscope is product packaging. From e-commerce retailers to industrial distributors, packaging has become more than just a protective layer—it's a reflection of your values.
On this featured episode of the RENEWables podcast, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Saloni Doshi, CEO and proud 'Chief Sustainability Geek' of EcoEnclose, the world's most eco-friendly packaging company.
Why Packaging Matters More Than Ever
Saloni shares powerful insights into how packaging impacts the environment and why it should be a core part of any sustainability strategy. With growing consumer expectations, ESG commitments, and government regulations, sustainable packaging is quickly transitioning from 'nice to have' to non-negotiable.
What You'll Learn in the Episode
A Call to Action for Climate-Conscious Businesses
Whether you're running a DTC brand, managing industrial logistics, or leading ESG efforts at a large company, this episode is a must-listen. Sustainable packaging is more than a box—it's a bold statement about your company's commitment to the planet.
Click here to listen to the full episode.
Click here to view all RENEWables podcast episodes.
RENEWables, A Sustainability Podcast is a new podcast focused on the energy landscape of today. Everything from emerging renewable energy technologies to sustainability practices to why brands are changing the way they think, RENEWables is a source for current and dynamic conversation.
Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from BioStar Renewables
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Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
A good day to be a fossil fuel
The Trump administration is intensifying its efforts to boost the fossil fuel industry. Its latest move: proposing a free pass to pollute. The Environmental Protection Agency today announced it would roll back Biden-era limits on carbon and toxic air pollution from power plants. While the nation is the world's second-biggest climate polluter, lagging only behind China, EPA argues that the U.S. power sector's pollution does not contribute enough to global climate change to justify regulating it, write Alex Guillén and Jean Chemnick. That's even though the power sector alone emits more carbon pollution than most countries and accounts for one-quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases. Former President Joe Biden's climate rule for power plants requires new natural gas plants and existing coal-fired units to eventually capture and store their greenhouse gas emissions. Analysts had anticipated that the measure — which the Trump administration aims to repeal by the end of the year — would make a significant dent in power sector climate pollution. The administration does not plan to issue a replacement rule, a person familiar with the agency's plans told Jean and Zack Colman. EPA also announced today that it aims to repeal a separate rule that curbs toxic mercury pollution from power plants. The agency's moves build on a slew of other Trump administration efforts to decimate U.S. climate policy. Trump plans to sign a trio of resolutions Thursday to revoke California's national-leading vehicle emissions standards, writes Alex Nieves. The administration has also taken a sledgehammer to executive branch programs dealing with climate change, from NASA's climate research division to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's heat team. And congressional Republicans are weighing to what extent they will unravel hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits for clean energy production from Democrats' 2022 climate law. Era of inertia: If Trump's newest EPA rule repeal sticks, it will extend a 15-year-long streak of setbacks for regulators' and lawmakers' attempts to address one of the nation's biggest climate pollution sources, Zack, Benjamin Storrow and Annie Snider write: 'The years of whipsawing moves have left Washington with no consistent approach on how — or whether — to confront climate change, even as scientists warn that years are growing short to avoid catastrophic damage to human society.' It's Wednesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@ Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Josh Siegel breaks down why Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, thinks the GOP megabill will cost Republicans at the ballot box. Power Centers AI boom could boost 'forever chemicals'The artificial intelligence boom isn't only driving up demand for power, it's also spurring production of so-called forever chemicals used to build semiconductor chips needed for data centers, writes Miranda Willson. Chemical giant Chemours, for example, is pushing to expand production of forever chemicals to meet surging demand, raising concerns about whether the company can scale up its output without releasing more toxic pollutants. Heat déjà vuLast month was the world's second-warmest May on record, European scientists have found, writes Louise Guillot. The same scientists found that this April was also the second-warmest April globally on record. It followed a March that was the warmest on record. In Other News AI futures: Data centers are building their own natural gas power plants in Texas. Trash sucks: A Norwegian city uses vacuum tubes to whisk waste away. Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was put in the uncomfortable position of defending Trump's decision to save a New York offshore wind project that it had pushed to the brink of collapse. Federal employee unions secured a legal victory this week when a federal court issued an order blocking the Office of Personnel Management from giving DOGE access to its records. The Transportation Department is set to release a draft of its overhauled guidance for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program later this month. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
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Trump's EPA Scraps Air Protections in Effort to Revive Coal Power
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday that it will seek to scrap two rules on power plant pollution as part of the Trump administration's effort to encourage more use of fossil fuels such as coal, a major source of greenhouse gases and toxic emissions that contribute to disease and premature deaths. "Since President Trump was sworn in, we have been working to end this agency's war on so much of our U.S. domestic energy supply," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at a ceremony at EPA headquarters. The EPA is proposing to repeal two Biden-era rules that would make new and existing power plants cut pollution. The 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards would limit greenhouse gases from power plants, and the 2024 changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards would have reduced emissions of harmful metals in emissions, primarily from coal. The power plant rules are among more than 30 regulations that Zeldin pledged to undo in March in what he called the biggest deregulation action in U.S. history. President Donald Trump speaks alongside coal and energy workers during an April executive order signing ceremony in the White House. The Trump administration has elected to roll back Biden-era environmental policies with the intention to... President Donald Trump speaks alongside coal and energy workers during an April executive order signing ceremony in the White House. The Trump administration has elected to roll back Biden-era environmental policies with the intention to help revive coal-fired plants. MoreThe changes will not immediately take effect, Zeldin said—the announcement Wednesday will trigger a public comment and rule-making period. Zeldin claimed the final repeal of the rules would save ratepayers more than $1 billion a year. "These rules have saddled our power sector with expensive, unnecessary and burdensome regulations," Zeldin said. In its proposal, the EPA argued that U.S. power plants do not contribute a significant amount to global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the U.S. power sector is responsible for about one-quarter of the country's total emissions, second only to the transportation sector. Zeldin's claims of cost savings are also undermined by the health costs associated with the rollbacks. "No power plant will be allowed to emit more than they do today," Zeldin said. However, repealing the rules means Americans would continue to be exposed to the current levels of harmful pollutants. Data from Zeldin's own agency shows that the 2024 carbon pollution standards would save lives by also reducing the other pollutants such as soot that lead to heart and lung disease. EPA estimates that the standards would prevent about 1,200 premature deaths in 2035. Environmental and public health groups pledged to fight the proposed rollback. "It's an extraordinary and reckless action by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency," Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, told Newsweek. "The fleet of power plant smokestacks in our country are the single largest industrial source of carbon pollution in the nation, it's just a staggering amount of pollution." Republican members of Congress from coal and gas-producing states joined Zeldin at the announcement in support. They said the changes would allow their states to keep in place fossil-fueled plants that might otherwise be shuttered. Ohio Representative Troy Balderson said the Biden-era rules "would have forced our most reliable sources into early retirement," threatening the reliability of the electric grid. West Virginia Representative Carol Miller, a co-chair of the Congressional Coal Caucus, said the country needs the dependable baseload power that coal provides. "We must unleash American coal, not bury it under red tape," Miller said. Miller lamented the decline of the coal industry in her state. Twenty years ago, coal was the nation's top fuel source and provided a little more than half of the country's electricity. By 2023, it had fallen to the fourth-highest energy source, providing only about 16 percent of U.S. electricity generation, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). A chart from the Energy Information Administration showing changes in the makeup of U.S. electricity generation over time. The brown section at the bottom shows the decline of coal as a fuel over the past... A chart from the Energy Information Administration showing changes in the makeup of U.S. electricity generation over time. The brown section at the bottom shows the decline of coal as a fuel over the past 20 years. More Energy Information Administration Coal mining employment has also sharply declined over the decades. Department of Labor statistics show about 45,000 people were employed in coal mining in 2023, roughly 60 percent of the number employed a decade earlier. In West Virginia, the state with the highest number of coal miners, coal employment dropped from about 21,000 in 2010 to 14,000 in 2023. Trump's high-profile effort to bring back coal in his first term in office did little to slow the decline. West Virginia and the nation had fewer miners when he left office in 2021 than when he entered it. The coal industry and its allies in Congress frequently blame the industry's woes on environmental regulations, a so-called "war on coal." But energy market analysis shows that the main reason behind coal's demise is simply that other cheaper and cleaner energy sources have become more available. The boom in natural gas supplies led many power companies to switch fuels, and gas is now the country's top source of electricity generation. Natural gas demand is projected to rise, but analysts also point to cost concerns with gas as both domestic use and exports of liquified natural gas climb. More recently, renewable energy has become the go-to source for new power. Last year, the EIA reported wind, solar and battery storage together accounted for more than 90 percent of new electricity capacity added to the U.S. grid. Electricity demand is projected to surge in the coming years, and many power companies find that renewable energy and battery storage is the fastest, cheapest way to add power supply. Globally, investments in clean and low-carbon energy are expected to be twice those in fossil fuel, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA's recent report on energy investment found about $2.2 trillion dollars flowing to solar, wind, nuclear power, battery storage, energy efficiency measures and low-emissions fuels. Coal, meanwhile, has become pricier. A 2023 analysis by the non-partisan think tank Energy Innovation found that 99 percent of U.S. coal plants were more expensive to run compared to replacement by renewable energy and battery storage. Even before the clean energy incentives offered by the Biden administration, about 77 percent of coal plants were more expensive than solar and wind. The extra cost to operate coal plants often gets passed along to ratepayers, as happened when the Trump administration used its emergency powers to order local utility regulators in Michigan to prolong the use of an old coal-fired power plant slated for closure. Michigan's Public Service Commission estimated that the order could cost ratepayers millions of dollars. The cost of air pollution is also a burden on the public in the form of additional premature deaths, illnesses, hospitalizations and lost work days due to asthma and other lung diseases linked to dirty air. One of Zeldin's predecessors at the EPA, Gina McCarthy, said the health effects of eliminating the rules would fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable people. "By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health," McCarthy, who served as the 13th EPA administrator under President Barack Obama, said in a statement. "It's a purely political play that goes against decades of science and policy review."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's EPA wants to repeal regulations on carbon emissions from power plants
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will aim to eliminate existing limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, a move that would curb the agency's ability to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news conference that Biden-era carbon pollution standards for power plants 'suffocate' the economy in order to protect the environment. Zeldin, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in January, stated that the agency's announcement was a huge step forward in energy dominance for the U.S., while promising that no power plants would emit more than they already do. Currently, the power sector accounts for a quarter of all U.S. emissions, according to the latest EPA emissions data. Zeldin also said the EPA plans to weaken Biden-era regulations on mercury emissions from power plants. Environmental advocates say the EPA's proposal is an escalation in the Trump administration's ongoing push against climate action across federal agencies, including at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Weather Service. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized the most stringent carbon pollution standards for power plants to date in an effort to tackle the climate crisis — but now, those rules face an uncertain future. Gina McCarthy, a former EPA Administrator under President Joe Biden, called Zeldin's announcement a 'political play' that defies 'decades of science and policy review' in a statement on Wednesday. 'By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,' McCarthy said. Jill Tauber, the vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice, a nonprofit currently suing the Trump administration over several environmental rollbacks said: 'Eliminating pollution standards from the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States flies in the face of what the law requires, what the science tells us, and what we're seeing every day.' Power plants in the U.S. are a huge contributor to global carbon emissions. A report published by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law found that if the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter in the world. Under the first Trump administration, the EPA rolled back several Obama-era greenhouse gas standards on power plants, but this recent announcement marks the first time the agency has suggested outright repeals. Zeldin's move on power plants follows his promise in March to tackle the 'climate change religion' by reconsidering or repealing 31 regulations surrounding tailpipe emissions, coal ash regulations and oil and gas wastewater management. The proposed rule, which will now move into its comment period, will face scrutiny from legal advocates and environmental nonprofits like Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which say the EPA is obligated to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by law — citing seminal cases like the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA lawsuit, which determined that greenhouse gases must be regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. 'We'll be watching closely to see if the EPA proceeds with repealing these life-saving standards based on a legal theory that doesn't pass the laugh test,' said Meredith Hawkins, the federal climate legal director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. 'The NRDC stands ready to defend the public's right to breathe in court if needed.' Cutting historic limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants would impact global climate change, but it could also cause ripple effects on human health and the economy. Harvey Reiter, an energy and utilities lawyer and a law professor at George Washington University, says that if the EPA moves forward with its planned repeals, he expects some energy companies and utilities that have retooled operations and made long-term investments in renewable energy to sue the Trump administration. 'The biggest impacts of the proposed rules are uncertainty and instability,' he said. 'Nobody knows what to do next. It makes investment decisions harder. It makes decisions about hiring, staff and employees harder. It creates a lot of uncertainty in the market.' Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are not just a climate issue. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide as well as other air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury and fine particulate matter, which are linked to increased risk of respiratory issues and cardiovascular disease. Regulating carbon emissions from power plants broadly reduces other air pollution for communities living near power plants, said Laura Kate Bender, the vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association. 'It works both ways. On the one hand, power plants burning fossil fuels contribute to climate change and cause health problems at the same time,' said Bender. 'And then climate change, in many cases, contributes to extreme heat, or more wildfire smoke, or more ozone smogs. Climate change is a health emergency, and cutting carbon in the power sector is a critical tool in the toolbox for fighting climate change.' This article was originally published on
