City Council

The resolution introduced to Philadelphia’s City Council states the Council’s intention to prioritize climate action and environmental justice in COVID-19 recovery plan.  On Friday, Councilmember At-Large Katherine Gilmore Richardson introduced a resolution to put climate action at the forefront of...

There’s still one more step before the ban becomes law. Yesterday, Philadelphia City Council voted to ban plastic bags during a Licenses and Inspections hearing. The original bill had a ban on plastic and 15 cents for all other bags....

A new year means new legislation possible in city council. We chatted with Councilman Mark Squilla (who was hanging out with our buddy Connor Barwin) during the recent Treecycling on South Street. The Councilman has his eyes on three possible sustainability bills...

Sad news on the Plastic Bag front… After Councilman Mark Squilla took on the twice-rejected plastic bag legislation and introduced a bill in April, and we’ve learned that the hearing scheduled for today will NOT happen. According to an email from...

Good news for rotting vegetables in Philly today. The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability recently discovered that we spend $6.1 million per year transferring uneaten food to landfills, and are now considering a composting program like Austin, New York and San Fran....

Sustainability's on its way to become a little more permanent in City government, but they need your help! As we mentioned back in November, Resolution No 130884 is to make the Philadelphia Mayor's Office of Sustainability Permanent within Philadelphia city government. Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski sent an email with an update on the progress.  Councilwoman Reynolds Brown and Councilman Kenney co-sponsored the bill and it was positively voted out of the Committee on Law and Government last week.

Humane League intern Lou Ryan is a full-time student and activist. She currently studies professional writing at Kutztown University, where she has written a number of health-related articles for the student-run newspaper The Keystone. This Thursday, March 20th at 10 a.m., City Council will officially present its recently passed Meatless Monday resolution to the Humane League, the nonprofit organization instrumental to the measure. Find out more updates, after the jump!

Great news, friends. If you care about something and voice your opinion, people in power listen. Although I must admit, I used to be a bit skeptical of individual actions towards political change.  I was a political science major in college, and one of the main takeaways was "Corporations lobbyists rule government."  The internets were raging over the past few days, as City Council bill 120917 would hurt community gardens.

Today, we're dishing the dirty truth about plastic bags. Each year... Americans use approximately 100 BILLION plastic bags ...creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste The average US family takes home 1500 plastic shopping bags An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide ... Which equals over 1 million plastic bags used per minute. (Find out what we're doing to ban plastic bag, and how you can help NOW, after the jump!)