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mss

@ratibida.bsky.social
88 followers 141 following 288 posts

Appreciator of bugs and birds. Fan of trails and green infrastructure. Current obsession: detrashing and restoring Iowa's Bottle Bill.

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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Picked up from my parking spot in the ramp, down the stairs, to the sidewalk. City has no recycling containers downtown so into the regular garbage they went. There's a better way. #bottlebill #betterbottlebill
A littered plastic shooter-size bottle of Fireball brand whisky, left on the stairs of a public parking ramp.A littered aluminum can of Ghost brand energy drink sits on a stairway landing at a public parking ramp. A littered can of Celsius brand energy drink, left on the ledge of a public parking ramp.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Two bottles. Same function. One has a deposit in Iowa and the other doesn't. How dumb is that? Let's fix our bottle bill: expand to include water+sports drink bottles, increase the deposit to 10¢ and rescind the law allowing retailers to opt out of their responsibility to take back empties.
A bottle of Gatorade sports drink showing deposit amounts: ME & HI 5¢, OR 10¢, CTRV CA CRV. A bottle of Diet Pepsi showing deposit amounts: ME-VT-MA-NY-IA-HI 5¢, OR 10¢, CTRV CA CRV.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Good lord, this is where they all come from. I'll see a lot of these little bastards again out on the street when I'm doing my litter picking.
Pallets of bottled water, various brands, await purchase at a warehouse store.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The detritus of suburbia: grass clippings + plastic water bottle. Ubiquitous.
A plastic Great Value brand water bottle sits littered on pavement, alongside dry grass clippings.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Why in the world is Iowa not collecting data on beverage containers for its bottle bill? Every other state manages to do it.
A chart showing change in beverage container redemption rates from 2024 to 2024. 
Deposit State | CY 2024 Redemption Rate | CY 2025 Redemption Rate | Redemption Rate Change: 2024 to 2025
California | 60% | 59% | -1%
Connecticut | 65% | 92% | +27%
Hawaii | 54% (FY 2023-2024) | 52% (FY 2024-2025) | -2%
Iowa* | N/A | N/A | N/A
Maine | 74% | 69% | -5%
Massachusetts | 35% | 33% | -2%
Michigan | 70% | 69% | -1%
New York | 69% | 68% | -1%
Oregon | 87% | 88% | +1%
Vermont | 70% | 68% | -2%

Source: CRI (https://www.container-recycling.org/images/2026/Press_release_in_2026_on_redemption_rates_for_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf)
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Container Recycling Institute @containerrecycling.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Learn more about the recently released 2025 beverage container redemption rates in the 10 U.S. DRS states - along w/legislative updates - in CRI's press release & Aug. 20 webinar. Press release (under 2026): www.container-recycling.org/media/ Webinar: www.container-recycling.org/home/cri-web...
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Water bottle #586 picked up so far this year. Thanks Great Value/Walmart for all your garbage: 108 of them are yours. One person. One neighborhood. Almost 600 water bottles. How about a better bottle bill to make sure these get where they belong?
An empty, crumpled plastic water bottle from Great Value (Walmart) sits littered next to a curb.
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Break Free From Plastic @breakfreefromplastic.org · 22/07/2026
Coca-cola's got a lot of new things going on, but can they end their reign as the top global corporate plastic polluter and work towards a plastic-free future? 🥤🤔 Tell Coca-Cola's New CEO to End Their Plastic Legacy!: www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2026-c…
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Golly, it sure would chap my hide if I paid a few thousand dollars for myself and everyone else in the country to have medical care instead of paying a few thousand dollars to an insurance company to skim a bit for their shareholders before finding reasons to deny payment for whatever they can.
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Mike Wiser @drmikewiser.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
It continues to infuriate me that so many people seem perfectly happy to frame higher education primarily or even solely in terms of job training. That is not the primary goal of much of it (though, obviously, there are cases where it is).
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Tiny flowers, tiny bee.
A metallic green bee forages at the small white flowers of hemp dogbane.
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NPR @npr.org · 16/07/2026
Higher oil prices since the Iran war began mean many oil companies have brought in excess profits. Some U.S. lawmakers want to tax those windfall profits and give the money to lower-income Americans.
n.pr
Oil companies are making billions. In the U.S., calls to tax their windfall are growing
Higher oil prices since the Iran war began mean many oil companies have brought in excess profits. Some U.S. lawmakers want to tax those windfall profits and give the money to lower-income Americans.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Glad we're able to continue hearing from Nathan Sage, and his conversations with people like J.D. Scholten.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Playgrounds littered with Capri-Sun. The drink of choice when barely-recyclable plastic bottles are too eco-friendly for your tastes.
A littered pouch of Capri-Sun juice drink sits on a squishy playground surface. A yellow straw juts from the top center of the pouch, above the Capri-Sun logo.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Yeah. How about we try NOT spraying poison indiscriminately over millions of acres of public land?
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Bizarre that the men who take and take and take and take more than they ever deserve, more than they could ever possibly use, more than any individual has a right to take somehow pretend that they themselves aren't the very "takers" they like to tantrum about.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
What a beautiful idea. Would love to see Iowa City have a little care for our wild neighbors as they continue to grow and develop land.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
You can buy a case of flimsy, single-use Great Value water bottles for around 15 cents each. Practically free. No wonder people feel comfortable just tossing them anywhere when they're done. This is the 493rd water bottle I've picked up so far this year.
A flattened plastic water bottle, Great Value (Walmart) brand, littered on pavement with its cap a short distance away. A spill of water has soaked into the pavement beneath the bottle's mouth.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Prairie coneflowers lovin' the heat.
An assortment of flowering Upright Prairie Coneflowers with leaves of grass in the background.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
A classy assortment for today's Litter of the Day, including Black Cat fireworks packaging and a Lucky Boy brand condom wrapper. Getting a jump on celebrating Independence Day, I guess.
Littered materials on the ground picked up at a neighborhood park, including a Lucky Boy brand condom wrapper, packaging for Black Cat brand bottle rockets, and one of many paper Hyvee receipts.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Mood.
A sodden house sparrow sits on a metal railing as rain falls around it.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Iconic: Great Value water bottle littered in the grass. These should be included in the bottle bill with a $.10 deposit on each. Maybe folks would think twice about buying them by the pallet and then littering/landfilling them. Thanks for all the garbage Walmart!
An empty plastic bottle of Great Value brand water sits littered on the grass near rod clover flowers.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Magnificent musk thistle. Such beautiful flowers for such a generally unwelcome plant. (I'm secretly always a little happy when I spot it.)
Spike purple flowerhead of a musk thistle, with even spikier flowers not-yet-blooming in the background. Musk thistle is not native to Iowa, introduced to North America almost two centuries ago.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Ribwort/buckhorn plantain flowering stalks look like little rockets taking off.
Several flowering heads of ribwort (or buckhorn) plantain atop slender, smooth stalks.Flowering heads of ribwort (or buckhorn) plantain can grow to over a foot high in grassy areas alongside sidewalks and trails when dry spells allow them to evade lawnmowers.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Blue-flag iris at the Sycamore Greenway.
Overhead view of a Blue-flag Iris flower, with a flat fan of leaves visible in the corner of the photo.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Hello there!
A garter snake peeps its head up from a crack in a paved trail.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
We pick up litter. But it's not enough to pick up litter. Once I pick up this can, no one who passes after that knows there was litter here. So we document using Open Litter Map. Take a picture, tag it, collect the data. So everyone can see.
An aluminum can of Squirt soda littered on the ground. The shadow of a hand holding a phone to take the picture is visible in the lower right corner. Screenshot from Open Litter Map showing a map of a commercial area with hundreds of green dots indicating pieces of litter picked up.
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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
They stole the internet’s knowledge and all the work that went into it and they want to sell it back to us for a fee. What a business model.
 ALTMAN: "WE SEE A FUTURE WHERE INTELLIGENCE IS A UTILITY, LIKE ELECTRICITY OR WATER, AND PEOPLE BUY IT FROM US ON A METER.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
When you stop to inspect some schmutz on a stem and find a whole little community doing its thing.
Plump yellow aphids congregate on a stem of golden alexanders, just beneath the inflorescence. The aphids are tended by several prairie mound ants.Black aphids cluster on  a stem of alsike clover.
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James O’Sullivan @jamesosullivan.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Everyone is losing their minds about who's playing Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan’s adaption of The Odyssey but nobody says a word when classics departments are shut down. We all know that this is not about Homer. open.substack.com/pub/jamescos...
open.substack.com
Be honest, you don't really care about Homer or classical literature
I will believe you actually care about Homer when you fight for a classics department.
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The Gazette @thegazette.com · 02/05/2026
Retracing Dragoon Trail: Kevin Mason’s walk across Iowa history
thegazette.com
Why an Iowa history professor walked 370 miles across state
Learn about Iowa history, the 1835 Dragoon Expedition, and Indigenous stories in history professor Kevin Mason’s new book, "Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa."
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
A littered pop can, courtesy of Pepsi, and blue violets, courtesy of nature.
A smashed and faded aluminum Pepsi can sits littered on the ground near a cluster of blooming violets.
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Zachary Oren Smith @zacharyos.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
LOCATION CHANGE: H-O-R-S-E w/ Josh Turek 1 p.m. Robert A Lee Rec Center (220 S Gilbert St, Iowa City, IA 52240) Donate to Shelter House - shelterhouseiowa.org/donate
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Plastic bags. Everywhere. Thanks Hyvee.
A littered plastic bag with the words "smile" and "aisle" from Hyvee's "Helpful smile in every aisle" slogan visible.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
This is how it's done: make the harmful things cost more, and use those funds to clean up the mess those harmful things make. Plastic bags, cans and bottles, tobacco...correct the market failures of negative externalities. Make industry clean up its own mess.
29news.com
Plastic bag tax funds Albemarle litter cleanup effort
Crews are out across Albemarle County cleaning up hundreds of miles of roadway as part of a growing effort to tackle litter.
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Concretebotany @concretebotany.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola) shot on July 14th of last year. #Bloomscrolling #Wildflowers #UrbanWildflowers
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
We know who wrote the posts: fascism wrote the posts. Whose fingers did the typing, which curdled brain composed, doesn’t matter as much. It lures us into court intrigue irrelevant to our opposition to the author of the posts, in all its incarnations: fascism.
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Andrew Yang @andrew-yang.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Tax the bots, not people. blog.andrewyang.com/p/tax-the-bots
blog.andrewyang.com
Tax the Bots
I was on CNBC last week talking about AI and jobs.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
March Bottle Bill report: 172 containers that are (or should be) covered by the bottle bill picked up in just a few weeks. $8.60 if all had the current nickel deposit. $43 if the deposit had kept up with inflation since originally enacted 50 years ago. Iowa needs a better bottle bill.
Pie chart showing beverage containers picked up in March 2026:
Alcohol Can	56 - 32%
Alcohol Bottle	12 - 7%
Shooter	14 - 8%
Water Bottle	44 - 25%
Pop Can	24 - 13%
Pop Bottle	14 - 8%
Energy Can	6 - 3%
Sports Drink Bottle	5 - 3%
Juice Bottle	2 - 1%
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 02/04/2026
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “The most fossil fuel-friendly government in recent U.S. history has shown us all just how risky reliance on oil and gas can be — and taught the world that true energy security lies in accelerating toward a cleaner, electrified future,” Jonathan Mingle writes.
nyti.ms
Opinion | Remember the Oil Shocks of the ’70s? This Is Going to Be Worse. Much Worse.
Higher oil prices and limited supply will accelerate a turn toward cleaner technologies, especially in Asia and Europe.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
"I don’t think [vape companies] really thought about how they were going to deal with the back-end issue. It’s not designed to be recycled, or they’re marketed as 'rechargeable disposals,' which makes no sense." These things are a blight. Better solutions are needed.
wastedive.com
The one-man collection service advocating for vape recycling in Wisconsin
EcoVape Recovery offers small-scale collection services for vape waste. Raymond Tucker, a parks service worker and firefighter, also advocates for recycling outlets, infrastructure support and formal ...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 30/03/2026
People do not appreciate what a vast, fundamental sea change batteries are bringing to the electrical system.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
If your product pollutes our landscape in massive numbers and cannot be easily recovered or recycled, then you obviously need to rethink your business model. We've tolerated this market failure for too long.
packagingdigest.com
Can EPR & Single-Serve Beverage Packaging Coexist?
Beverage industry analysts critique the ramifications of EPR for beverage manufacturers and their prevalent use of single-serve packaging.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
I've got a half-dozen of these sitting in my garage after picking them up as litter, because there is no way to dispose of them in my city.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Big Grove Brewery! Found a couple of yours on my last outing. Always nice to find local litter amongst all the tawdry Busch Lights. Will you support a better bottle bill to keep your garbage out of our roadsides and waterways? #bottlebill #nationalbottlebill #iowabottlebill
A can of beer from Big Grove Brewery sits littered on the ground.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
"Meat-free dishes"? Come on, QC Times. Animal flesh is meat. Fish are animals. Be accurate.
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Concretebotany @concretebotany.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Marigold (Tagetes patula) shot last September 7th. #Bloomscrolling #Flowers #Flowersky
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
'murica-themed "Freedom" cans, crumpled and lying in the dirt. These appear to be from a 2022 campaign by Budweiser. #bottlebill #nationalbottlebill #iowabottlebill
A crumpled can of Budweiser beer with a patriotic design of stars and stripes featuring the word "Freedom" in large text sits littered on a bed of dry leaves and mud.
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mss @ratibida.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
A sampling of beer cans chucked off a bridge over Ralston Creek near campus. If the deposit had kept up with inflation, you could redeem these and actually buy more beer instead of a gumball. #bottlebill
A dozen or so beer cans strewn across dirt and leaves. In the background, the base of a bridge can be seen.
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Concretebotany @concretebotany.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) with Purslane, shot in Whitman on August 1st of last year. #Bloomscrolling #Wildflowers #SidewalkFlowers
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