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Can Carpet Be Recycled? Environmentally Friendly Options Nearly all types of carpet can be recycled, but the process may not be as simple as putting your old carpet out for curbside recycling. Because carpet is made from so many layers of materials, including fibers and plastics, they don’t degrade easily in landfills. Many municipalities won’t even accept carpets if you toss them out with your other household trash for this exact reason. Instead, you may have to take them to a designated waste disposal site. Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), a joint industry-government non-profit whose mission is to develop carpet recycling solutions, estimates that 5 billion pounds of carpet were sent to landfills in 2017. There, they can leach toxic chemicals into the soil and groundwater and release greenhouse gases for hundreds of years until they finally degrade. Recycling carpet is a much more sustainable option. Carpet recyclers break them down into raw materials and process those material

How to Recycle Batteries As the world slowly transitions to cleaner energy, batteries are increasingly in the news. But batteries come with a perplexing twist: What to do with them once they've died? Do you find yourself with a drawer full of loose batteries that you don’t really know what to do with? Whether single-use, rechargeable, or from your vehicle, batteries are recyclable—but it's not as simple as tossing them into the curbside bin.  States have different policies regarding battery disposal. California, for example, considers discarded batteries as hazardous waste, making them illegal to throw into the trash. The state has plenty of resources for ways to safely dispose of batteries, however, from local drop-off centers to mail-in services. In San Francisco, residents who live in single-family homes or small multifamily buildings can put loose household batteries inside a tightly sealed plastic bag, and place them on top of their closed landfill bin, while larger apartm

Blue Hydrogen Study Finds It Isn't Climate-Friendly, Igniting Fierce Debate Over Emissions A recent study casts doubt on the green credentials of so-called “blue hydrogen” and it has caused a stir in the scientific community. Blue hydrogen, a purportedly green fuel that is typically extracted from natural gas, has long been touted as a climate solution but a controversial peer-reviewed study released last week argues its production is linked to high greenhouse gas emissions. Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, and Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, say that when compared to burning coal and natural gas to produce heat, blue hydrogen produces 20% more emissions. Hydrogen itself is considered a clean fuel because it can be used to produce energy or heat without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, other than water vapor. Many researchers have long argued that blue hydrogen shoul