A lot has been going on to make the Commonwealth and our city either more or less friendly to the planet and livable. Here's a few highlights:

1. There's a move afoot to create a plastic bag fee in the city. The dialog around the issue misses the point of what the actual impact of the legislation would be, in my humble opinion. The idea is that every plastic bag you receive at a Philadelphia store would cost you 25-cents.

I think that the debate over whether or not folks can afford that extra 25-cents is misplaced. The truth is, you can probably just expect all stores to switch to paper, should it go through. Which is good. It's silly to use a non-renewable resource (oil) to make a product that's used for 15 minutes and then becomes litter that won't ever go away.

It's a good idea. Let's get behind it. This city is covered in junk and a good bit of is it is plastic bags.

2. My organization, Clean Water Action, has been working every day to make sure that the new Natural Gas Drilling industry doesn't wreck most of our state. Carol Collier, the Executive Director of the Delaware River Basin Commission, announced this week that any natural gas extraction in the Delaware River Basin's Special Protection Waters drainage areas will be subject to approval by her organization. This is good news.

For more on this and three other items, click "read more."

We've been worried that drillers are setting up small operations, claiming it's for drilling shallower shale, so they could set up shop in an irresponsible way and only then say, "Oh yeah, we changed our mind. We want to go for deep shale here," and apply for water extraction rights.

The problem with that is that you've already missed your chance to make sure the operation is set up right from the start. Way to go, DRBC. And way to go folks in the Damascus Citizens for Sustainability that pressed the DRBC hard to do exactly this.

3. Your building should be recycling. Do you live in a multi-unit apartment building? Do you work in a big office building? Do you have recycling bins placed around your building? The Recycle NOW! Campaign will work alongside you in a gameplan to get your building recycling, if you come to a workshop on Wed, June 10th, 6:30PM at the Academy of Natural Sciences. More info and an RSVP spot in the link.

4. Sunoco, Sunoco, Sunoco. Tsk. On Friday, they were assessed nearly $1M in air quality fines. On Sunday, an ethylene refinery at the same plant had a blow out. It still closed.

Trouble has a way of coming in pairs for the refinery. Back in March, they had a spill of Hydroflouric Acid on their South Philadelphia site and workers were hospitalized. Then, ten days later, a truck carrying a load of the same stuff overturned upstate and led to the evacuation of 5,000 people in area communities. No one was harmed, but imagine the trouble alone if the same accident had happened on Grey's Ferry? In worst-case scenario estimates, a serious release of this stuff would kill pretty much everyone in Philadelphia.

As safety concerns mount up around the refinery, it's time for the City and Commonwealth to seriously rethink how much scrutiny we put on our local Mordor.

5. Last note, the Philadelphia Planning Commission approved a plan to create public access to the Delaware River with a greenway to run along it. I think I've walked up to the waters edge of the Delaware once or twice since I moved here. Sometimes, I forget it's there. We're a two river city and taking full advantage of that will make more people want to live here, enjoy living here and stick around.