Parts Per Billion

It seems you can't go a week anymore without someone announcing they're banning plastic straws in the name of reducing water pollution. As Bloomberg Environment's Sam McQuillan reports, even the sporting world is getting into the act. For the latest episode of Parts Per Billion, we talk with Sam about why sports stadiums are announcing bans on plastic straws and about the star power behind this nascent movement.

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Brett Kavanaugh is the man of the hour. The federal appeals court judge was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump, who called him “one of the finest and sharpest legal minds in our time.” Bloomberg Environment reporter Fatima Hussein says Kavanaugh has a lengthy and interesting record on environmental issues. For the latest episode of Parts Per Billion, Fatima breaks down what a possible “Associate Justice Kavanaugh” would mean for air, water, soil, and more.

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More money is always better, right? Well, not when it comes to redeveloping polluted real estate. On the latest episode of Parts Per Billion, we hear from Bloomberg Environment reporter Sylvia Carignan on why larger redevelopment grants from the EPA may actually hurt small, rural communities.

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Many Puerto Ricans are fed up with their government-run electric utility, with sporadic outages still occurring more than eight months after Hurricane Maria. Bloomberg Environment reporter Rebecca Kern just returned from the island, and she found that demand there for residential solar power is through the roof. But, as she tells us in the latest episode of Parts Per Billion, even solar panel installers are saying storm-fatigued residents are raising their hopes too high.

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Hotel workers have to go into what is essentially someone's bedroom by themselves multiple times a day. How do we keep them safe? Some California legislators think they have the solution: panic buttons. On this episode of Parts Per Billion, we speak with Bloomberg Environment reporter Fatima Hussein about her recent story on a bill in the Golden State that would require all hotels to provide workers with these personal safety devices.

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One of the nice things about bitcoins is that you can mine them almost anywhere—even on a toxic Superfund site. For this week's episode of Parts Per Billion we explain why these unused, and possibly unusable, contaminated industrial sites might be perfect for bitcoin mining operations.

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The EPA says it's going to revise the federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which environmentalists fear could resurrect the gas guzzlers that used to roam the roads decades ago. For this episode of Parts Per Billion, we give the keys to climate reporter Abby Smith, who tries to explain a very complicated and messy regulatory situation. For one, she says, there's the issue of California, which has the power to set its own efficiency standards for cars and is likely not on board with the Trump administration's efforts to roll those standards back.

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Sometimes businesses leave toxic waste in their wake when they shut down a factory. What should be done with that contaminated land? That's where the EPA's Superfund program comes in. Its mission is to clean up the land and makes it usable for someone else. But who really wants to buy a Superfund site? For the latest of Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Environment reporter Sylvia Carignan talks about the agency's efforts to make these rehabilitated properties more attractive to potential buyers and why often times that can be a really difficult task.

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Hey big city dwellers, ever wish you could escape the stress of the concrete jungle and visit something that more resembles an actual jungle? Well now, thanks to something called the "biophilic" movement, your wish may be coming true. On this episode of Parts Per Billion, we head over to Kingman Island--a nature preserve nestled in the heart of Washington's inner city--to learn more about this movement from Bloomberg Environment reporter Adam Allington.

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Marijuana is becoming a big business and many are hoping this will eventually drive out the illegal pot farmers and their environmental reckless pest control tactics. However, not everyone is so sure. Legal pot could just create a larger market for the drug, which in turn could make it more lucrative to grow the crop illegally. On this episode of Bloomberg Environment's podcast Parts Per Billion, we speak with reporter Sara Merken about the environmental hazards of growing marijuana and about the future of this crop as it slowly moves out of the shadows.

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