Pollution

Rome resident Kathy Miller attends a town hall about PFAS chemicals at Forum River Center in Rome, Ga., on March 31, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

John Thompson, of the U.S. Department of State, right, speaks with Dennis Clare, legal advisor to Micronesia's delegation, after a meeting for delegates to the plastic pollution treaty talks in Geneva, Switzerland, convened and adjourned in less than a minute late on Thursday, August 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jennifer McDermott)

Omoh Alokwe, co-founder of Street Waste Company, told The Associated Press, the increasing plastic waste is partly due to population pressure in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

A scavenger sorts out plastic waste at a dumpsite on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

A sign warns drivers of a school bus stop near an oilfield, on the outskirts of Loving, N.M., on Tuesday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Berta Sanyi and Paula Hamadi, left, stand chest deep in water as they collect clams in a mangrove forest where only women are permitted to enter in Jayapura, Papua province, Indonesia on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

Shoshone-Paiute tribal member Michael Hanchor visits his mother’s grave, March 15, 2024, in Owyhee, Nev., on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation that straddles the Nevada-Idaho border. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Bridgette Murray poses next to an air quality monitor in the Pleasantville area of Houston, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

An artist’s rendering of a rare earth mining operation in Myanmar. AP’s investigation linked the supply chains of global corporate giants to the mining operations that result in environmental destruction, theft of land from villagers and money funneled to brutal militias. The abuses are likely to grow with increased demand for rare earth elements, vital to the green energy industry. (AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin)

With wind turbines in the foreground, steam rises from the coal-fired power station Neurath near the Garzweiler open-pit coal mine in Luetzerath, Germany, Oct. 25, 2021. Coal is the world’s biggest fuel source for generating electric power, and also the single biggest source of greenhouse gases impacting climate. (AP Photo / Michael Probst)

This image provided by NOAA taken Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021 and reviewed by The Associated Press shows Oil slicks are visible at the flooded Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, La., in an Aug. 31, 2021 photo released by NOAA and reviewed by the AP. State and federal regulators responded to the spill site on the banks of the Mississppi River after AP provided the photos of the spill and the company acknowledged a “sheen of unknown origin” at its flooded refinery. (NOAA via AP)