Hydrogen as an element is simple. Each atom has one electron and one proton. It’s first on the periodic table — the most abundant chemical substance in the universe. But hydrogen as a potential climate-friendly energy source is anything but simple. Hydrogen has long been used in dirty industries: cleaved from fossil fuels, it can
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What are we doing to this planet, and what are we doing about what we’re doing to this planet? No writer’s body of work surpasses Elizabeth Kolbert’s to answer these questions. Kolbert has been a staff writer for The New Yorker for 25 years, documenting climate change with an unflinching eye. Her first book on
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When he first saw workers changing out the streetlights on his block in Chestnut Hill, Timothy Breslin didn’t think much of it. He went to bed that night in the summer of 2022 without issue. In the daylight, he still didn’t register the changes. But when night fell, his street full of modest rowhomes was
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Soft-spoken Ray Daly, the founding owner of Ray’s Reusables, is on a zero-waste mission. But her approach is more supportive sherpa than zealous missionary. While noting on her website that only 9% of the 8.3 billion pounds of plastic produced before 2019 have been recycled — leaving billions in landfills or the oceans — Daly’s
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“My life,” says Julie Slavet, “is all about tires.” Slavet is exaggerating — but only slightly. As the executive director of the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, part of her job is to help improve Tacony Creek Park, a 300-acre preserve in Northeast Philadelphia. And for the last couple years, that’s meant dealing with illegally dumped tires.
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It all began as one of Marques Davis’ self-described “quirky ideas.” In 2018, he decided that for the holidays he would make his loved ones a handmade gift: soap. But soapmaking, with its weeks-long production period, did not agree with Davis’ disposition, he says. “I like immediate gratification.” After what he calls his “soap fail,”
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Tasha Sammons and her son, S’vante, were expecting a cheerful dinner at their home in Olney on Father’s Day weekend five years ago. “S’vante was happy, waiting for his dad,” Sammons says. “But my husband, Ted, who’d had diabetes since age 9, never made it home. He had a heart attack and died [on the
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Samuel Velasquez operates La Marqueza Philly, a colorful Mexican food truck near the Community College of Philadelphia. Before the City’s plastic bag ban, his customers received their orders in disposable plastic bags. These days, unless those customers offer up their own reusable bags, their orders come in paper bags. As a step towards mitigating the
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It was September 1999 and Denise Statham didn’t know danger was lapping at her doorstep. Her employer had closed their office earlier that day and Statham was finishing some work on her laptop when the power went out. She decided to nap for a while and see if it came back on. At about 7
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The amount of electronic waste the U.S. produces — 6.9 million tons annually — is an overwhelming problem, but for Steve Figgatt, founder of the e-waste recycling business Sycamore International, it’s also a nearly limitless opportunity. Thirteen years ago Figgatt, 36, started the West Grove-based business — which now employs 73 people and processes 40,000
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