Discarded single-use water bottles are an all-too-familiar component of the litter landscape. A March 28 webinar will consider a mitigation strategy. Click on the headline for details.
Volunteers will converge on more than 100 sites April 11 to remove trash from the Potomac River watershed. Continue reading
This year’s Environmental Film Festival features a shorts program that highlights green roofs in the District of Columbia, along with efforts to clean up the Anacostia River. Continue reading
Jim Dinegar, president and CEO of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, will be the keynote speaker on Nov. 7 at this year’s Potomac Watershed Trash Summit. Continue reading
The fifth annual D.C. State Fair is this Saturday, featuring contests and a biergarten. Continue reading
Trish Kim, the president of the International Association of Home Staging Professionals, provides an insider’s review of a new novel that features a home-staging project, quirky characters, and droll humor. Continue reading
Monarch butterflies are returning to the Washington area, a springtime ritual that dates to at least the last ice age. But experts fear that habitat destruction in both the United States and Mexico could spell the end of the monarchs’ annual migration between the two countries. Continue reading
The non-profit enterprise, located at the new Monroe Street Market near Catholic University, is an offshoot of a local performance company. Continue reading
Urban stormwater runoff pollutes waterways with pesticides, motor-vehicle toxins, and even pet waste. D.C.’s Department of the Environment in coming weeks will provide city residents with free plants and technical expertise to help mitigate the problem. Continue reading
Final results from the 2013 Solar Decathlon place D.C.’s team 7th among 19 competitors. Litter blog toured the innovative solar-powered house and has the full report with photos! Continue reading
Field trips to see anti-littering efforts in action are a new feature of this year’s Potomac Watershed Trash Summit on Oct. 18. Continue reading
Environmentalists and local governments are embracing the concept of “zero waste,” but they don’t always agree on how to define it. Central to the debate is what role incineration will play — if any — in the waste-management practices of coming decades. Continue reading
Chief Cathy Lanier says taking a “zero tolerance” approach to minor offenses in D.C. is counter-productive. So does the chief still support the litter enforcement pilot project? Continue reading
Innovative design of the Empowerhouse duplex strives for “net zero,” which means producing all of the energy it needs.
Continue reading
Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of famed underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, will speak next month at the 7th Annual Potomac Watershed Trash Summit in Silver Spring. Continue reading
A 16-month-old pilot project to enforce the District of Columbia’s anti-littering law against pedestrians has been expanded to include a second police district. Continue reading
A temporary shuttle-bus service from the National Mall makes August an ideal time to visit the Anacostia Community Museum and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.
More than three years after the D.C. City Council enacted ground-breaking anti-litter legislation, an initial burst of enforcement activity has slowed. Police are ticketing fewer motorists, and a pilot project expanding the crackdown to pedestrians appears stalled.
Continue reading
D.C.’s annual “Truck Touch” event gives residents a chance to get up close and personal with the mobile equipment that keeps our municipal infrastructure in working order. At this year’s event, we talked with folks who clean our storm drains and streets. Continue reading
An apparent bald eagle was sighted briefly on Saturday in the Takoma D.C. neighborhood. We’ve got the photos! Continue reading
Spread across the city on public parkland, 36 community gardens in Washington, D.C., give urban residents a chance to grow their own food while fostering a sense of community. Continue reading
The first segment of today’s “Kojo Nnamdi Show” on WAMU radio (88.5 FM) will discuss the issue of bottled water on college campuses. The segment, titled “Ban the Bottle,” begins at 12:06 p.m. E.D.T. If you head to the show’s website (http://thekojonnamdishow.org/), also check out the audio archive of an earlier segment, from Aug. 15, 2007, titled “Bottled Water Controversies.” Continue reading
As curbside recycling programs proliferated across the United States in the late 1990s, overall recycling rates for beverage containers actually dropped. Addressing this paradox, which contributes to the litter problem, requires a renewed push for container deposit laws. Continue reading
Utilities that draw drinking water from the Potomac River for Washington, D.C., and much of Northern Virginia received no official warning in mid-December as 3.5 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the Monocacy River, a major Potomac tributary. Continue reading
Are disposable plastic bags “progressive”? The plastics industry thinks so and recently announced a revamped effort to “defend” plastic bags against the sort of bag fees adopted by the District of Columbia and Montgomery County, Md.