The Brief

Companies are claiming to be ‘plastic neutral.’ Is it greenwashing?

For years, companies have been trying to offset their greenhouse gas emissions with carbon credits. Now, they want to do the same thing for their plastic pollution.

A growing number of companies are claiming “plastic neutrality” through the purchase of so-called plastic credits, tradable units that typically each represent 1 metric ton of plastic waste that’s been removed from the environment. These credits, sold by dozens of unregulated businesses and nonprofits, are supposed to complement companies’ internal plastic reduction strategies while also funding waste collection in the developing world.

Companies as varied as Burt’s Bees, Nestlé, and the pet food brand Nature’s Logic have vowed to neutralize at least some of their plastic footprint using credits. The beauty product company Davines, for example, says that for every piece of plastic it sells to consumers, it funds the removal of an equivalent amount of plastic from coastal areas in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brazil.

“We are reaching a 1:1 balance between the plastic we use and the plastic we remove from the environment,” the company says on its website.

Skepticism about "offsetting" plastic impacts

But does plastic waste collection in one part of the world really “offset” the impacts from ongoing plastic production, use, and disposal somewhere else? Some experts and environmental groups are skeptical. They worry that plastic credits place a disproportionate emphasis on managing, rather than reducing, plastic garbage. Some say credits are just a way for polluters to burnish their reputations without taking responsibility for the plastic they produce.

“Frankly, it’s all greenwashing,” said Kevin Budris, advocacy director for the nonprofit Just Zero. “The only real solution to the full suite of plastic pollution problems is to stop making so much plastic in the first place.”

If you look at most of the plastic crediting initiatives out there — and there are a lot — most of them offer a similar value proposition: Plastic credits can help fund waste collection in the developing world.

How it works

Here’s how they work: A crediting organization funds a project that purports to collect plastic pollution, or prevent it from escaping into the environment. This could be a beach or river cleanup that collects low-value, nonrecyclable plastic waste and disposes of it in a controlled landfill. Or it could be a program to pay “waste pickers,” the uncontracted workers who make their living by collecting refuse from dump sites and the natural environment and selling it to recyclers. The main requirement is that activities funded by plastic credits would not have taken place otherwise: They have to be “additional,” in the industry parlance.

That crediting initiative then measures the amount of waste collected and posts the appropriate number of credits in a registry, usually one credit per metric ton. Companies buy those credits, and by doing so they support the underlying plastic collection activity.

A waste picker sorts through plastic bottle waste at the Dandora garbage dump in Nairobi.

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According to Peter Hjemdahl, co-founder of the plastic crediting initiative Repurpose Global, this financing from the private sector is “critical” for cleaning up plastic waste and “empowering” waste pickers. After all, many parts of the world lack formal waste management infrastructure to deal with domestically generated trash, let alone the 14 million metric tons of plastic that enters the ocean each year and may wash up on their shores.

Hjemdahl claims companies want to fund these activities because their employees have “moral consciousness.” But there are other, more practical reasons companies might want to buy plastic credits: According to Thierry Sanders, co-founder and director of the crediting company Circular Action BV, polluters that have to comply with “extended producer responsibility,” or EPR, laws — policies that make companies financially responsible for dealing the pollution they cause — can use plastic credits to demonstrate that a certain percentage of the plastic they sell is ultimately collected and recycled. In Vietnam, for example, an EPR law enacted last year set mandatory recycling targets for a range of products, including plastic packaging. Any company wanting to sell plastic packaging could use plastic credits to prove that the required percentage of its sales was eventually recycled. (At least, they could prove that a certain amount of plastic was recycled; it would be nearly impossible to prove it was their plastic that was collected and turned into new products.)

Where laws stand worldwide

The current reality, however, is that most parts of the world don’t have EPR laws — which leads to the third and perhaps most salient reason companies are interested in plastic credits: for their marketing value. Credits are “more for corporations that want to make specific claims,” said Vincent Decap, co-founder of a crediting initiative called Zero Plastic Oceans.

Indeed, many plastic crediting programs have a prominent section of their website explaining how companies can use credits to make green marketing claims, or affix proprietary labels to their products. Repurpose Global notes on its website that eco-friendly labels help products “scale significantly faster.” PCX, another crediting organization, encourages brands to “wear your badge with pride,” because doing so will help consumers “know you’re the real deal.”

Most of these badges and labels involve some kind of offsetting language, like “plastic neutral,” “net circular plastic,” and “net-zero plastic to nature.” Similar to carbon credits, these claims generally mean that a company has purchased enough plastic credits to “offset” whatever plastic pollution it contributes to the world. In this way, the impact of one plastic bag sold to the public — and potentially littered into the ocean — is supposedly neutralized by the collection of an equivalent amount of plastic pollution by weight.

Why equivalency is a concern

Some 14 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean each year.

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Mladen Antonov

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The problem, however, is that not everyone believes those neutrality claims are the real deal. First is an equivalency concern: Unlike with carbon molecules, which one can reasonably assume will all behave similarly in the atmosphere, not all plastics are created equal. Plastic film is the most lethal form of plastic to marine life and is extremely difficult to remove from the environment and recycle. Plastics labeled with a number 3, 6, or 7 may be more likely than others to release hormone and endocrine disruptors. Meanwhile, PET water bottles, labeled with the number 1, aren’t as dangerous to natural environments and tend to get recycled. Yet crediting programs may ignore these differences, using the collection of one polymer to ostensibly neutralize the impact of another.

More broadly, there are concerns that neutrality will be used to justify ongoing plastic use and production, since the phrase implies that plastic production can be impact-free as long as it is “canceled out” with credits. To the contrary, plastic — which is made from fossil fuels — causes harms at every stage of its life cycle. Oil and gas extraction can create air and groundwater pollution that harms people living nearby. Manufacturing can release additional pollution that disproportionately impacts low-income communities and people of color, and plastic products sitting on supermarket shelves can leach toxic chemicals into people’s food and beverages.

According to Alejandra Warren, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Plastic Free Future, these impacts are by no means erased when a plastic producer in one country pays for garbage to be removed from another country’s shoreline. “Plastic credits do not address the ongoing and future environmental injustices caused by the plastics industries around the world,” she told Grist.

Plastic crediting organizations are not oblivious to these concerns, especially as the carbon market has become engulfed in controversy over alleged greenwashing and “phantom” carbon credits that don’t actually cancel out ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. By selling potentially fraudulent carbon offsets, some lawyers say carbon crediting organizations have put themselves at risk of a “wave of litigation” from consumer protection lawsuits. According to the legal nonprofit ClientEarth, plastic creditors may be exposing themselves to the same risks.

Some crediting organizations are trying to distance themselves from those controversies by moving away from neutrality claims and toward something called a “contribution model,” in which companies pay for plastic credits without the goal of claiming plastic neutrality. Rather than bearing a “net-zero plastic” label, a product might read, “This company paid for the removal of 5 tons of plastic litter in 2022.”

That kind of label describes “what’s actually happening,” said Alix Grabowski, director of plastic and material science for the nonprofit WWF, “versus this vague term of ‘neutral,’ which no one knows what it really means.” She said it would be helpful for regulators like the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces the United States’ consumer protection laws, to step in with some clearer guidelines on these kinds of environmental claims. Others are hopeful that an initiative called the Plastic Footprint Network, composed of consulting groups, plastic crediting initiatives, and a small number of nonprofits, will rally the industry around a common set of standards.

Plastic bottles at a junk shop in Manila, Philippines.

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Decap, whose organization Zero Plastic Oceans offers companies a label that reads “ocean-bound plastic neutral,” said he hopes to switch to contribution-based labels by sometime next year. That way, he said, “we will not have this stain from what’s happening in the carbon market, which is honestly pretty ugly.” Hjemdahl also said more contribution-based language is needed, although he didn’t say whether or when Repurpose Global would phase out its plastic neutrality labels.

Plastic credits vs. strict controls

Regardless of the kinds of claims companies make about plastic credits, they remain controversial. Credits represent a waste management approach to addressing the plastic pollution crisis, rather than the strict controls on plastic production that many experts and environmental advocates would prefer to focus on.

Hjemdahl, with Repurpose Global, said reducing plastic production needs to be prioritized “first and foremost,” but also said that choosing one over the other creates a “false dichotomy” that is “actively allowing polluters to thrive amid the lack of clarity from practitioners.” According to him, plastic reduction “is not going to have an impact by itself if there is no infrastructure to actually collect waste in the first place.”

Environmental advocates, on the other hand, say it’s the other way around: Even the sincerest efforts to ramp up waste collection and recycling will be futile in the face of the plastic industry’s plans to triple plastic production by 2060 — a scenario that’s expected to generate 44 million metric tons of plastic pollution annually. “If reduction and cleanup efforts are pursued simultaneously, but cleanup efforts are getting even an equal amount of attention, then those are resources and efforts that are misplaced,” said Budris, with Just Zero.

He and others argue that cleanups like those encouraged by plastic credits align with the petrochemical industry’s “sophisticated greenwashing” strategy to build good will among consumers and policymakers so they can justify not imposing caps or reductions on the production of plastic. This dynamic has played out prominently in negotiations for a global plastics treaty, in which oil-producing nations have called for more cleanups and recycling as an alternative to a cap on plastic manufacturing. It’s also manifested in industry-led cleanup initiatives like the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, whose fossil fuel and petrochemical company members, including Exxon Mobil and Shell, have a vested interest in keeping the world dependent on plastics.

Budris called it “preposterous” to frame plastic credits as a way to support waste pickers in the developing world. So much of the plastic waste that pickers deal with, he said, can be traced to the fact that they’re “drowning in a tide of single-use plastic” whose production they had no say in or control over.

“If these companies really want to do something to improve waste management in the Global South,” he added, “they need to just stop making so much plastic. That’s the easiest route to addressing so many of these issues.”

Duane “Keffe D” Davis was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years to life in prison for orchestrating the murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur who was gunned down off the Las Vegas Strip over 30 years ago.

Davis, 63, was convicted in August of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. He is the only person ever charged in the death of Shakur, whose popularity was peaking at age 25.

Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said Tuesday that whatever sentence the court imposes, Davis is “guaranteed to die” behind bars.

“It’s not just about losing a family member,” DiGiacomo said as Shakur’s sister Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur nods her head in the audience.

The killing went unsolved for years until Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, gave interviews and published his role in the shooting in his 2019 tell-all memoir.

DiGiacomo said Davis was trying to profit off a killing that he committed, and for that he does not deserve the minimum sentence.

“In my mind he deserves the maximum possible sentence,” DiGiacomo said.

Davis spoke briefly in court, telling Judge Carli Kierny he wants items back that police took from his house, including his pictures. Asked if there was anything else he wanted to say, Davis said: “No, I’m good.”

Davis’ lawyer, Michael Sanft, said he plans to appeal the verdict. Sanft said prosecutors waited too long to bring the case.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was in the passenger seat of a black BMW with music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight when a white Cadillac pulled up at a red light, and shots erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died six days later, while Knight survived.

Shakur is considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time and had a burgeoning film career as an actor at the time of his death. His legend has only grown since. His songs still resonate among fans with themes of hardship, love and Black struggles.

In his memoir, Davis explained how Shakur and his entourage beat up Davis’ nephew hours before the shooting in Las Vegas. He said he sought retaliation, and that he was in the passenger seat of the Cadillac and passed the gun to the backseat, where shots were fired. Davis had spoken to detectives years before but avoided prosecution because of an agreement he made with law enforcement.

During the weekslong trial, prosecutors relied on Davis’ own statements he made to law enforcement and documentarians. They argued Davis orchestrated the shooting and provided the gun used in Shakur’s death, which was the result of a rivalry between the South Side Compton Crips and Mob Piru. Davis’ defense attorney pointed to a lack of physical evidence that connected his client to the 30-year-old crime, and he portrayed Davis as a liar who was trying to make money.

After nine days of hearing testimony in August, the jury deliberated for three hours before turning over the guilty verdict.

Shakur was an icon, a brother

Shakur’s family spoke at the sentencing, including his siblings Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur and Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur.

Following the verdict, prosecutor Binu Palal said that to many people, Shakur was an icon or an idea, “but to the family, Tupac Shakur was a brother, a son, a cousin, a loved person ripped from them 30 years ago.”

Palal said the family had to sit through years of Davis “bragging about killing someone they loved.”

“They loved that man. And the arrogance that Mr. Davis had in expressing his joy in killing that man ultimately was his undoing,” Palal said.

Prosecutors say they have insufficient evidence to charge anyone else

Davis is the only person to be charged and convicted in the killing of Shakur. The three other people who allegedly were in the Cadillac — including Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, who Davis said was the one who pulled the trigger — have died.

Sean “Diddy” Combs and his alleged role were brought up often throughout the trial. Witnesses testified Combs used members of the South Side Compton Crips for security for Bad Boy Records. In his book and public statements, Davis alleged Combs offered him money to kill Shakur and Knight. Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of prostitution-related offenses, has repeatedly denied any involvement in the death of Shakur.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said his office doesn’t believe it has sufficient evidence to charge anyone else.

“But like any other case, if we come into more information, more evidence, we can always consider filing additional charges,” he said following the guilty verdict. “But today, we don’t believe that’s the appropriate move to make.”

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

The upcoming gubernatorial election in California has been characterized as “quiet” and “sleepy” because the frontrunner, Xavier Becerra, has a very high chance of winning.

But for Latines, this election is slated to be one of the most historic and monumental elections ever: The largest state in the nation with the largest Latine population is about to elect a Latino governor for the first time. Becerra’s election is a big deal.

“Having someone in this highest office signals a potential turning point, a potential watershed moment, for which the future will tell whether this is a one-time thing or whether this opens the door for many more folks,” said G. Cristina Mora, sociology professor and co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “The historical significance, the symbolism of it is incredibly important.”

The likelihood that Becerra will become the next governor of California comes at a time when Latines have made gains in the state’s political landscape, but also when the state faces major challenges — from standing up to President Donald Trump’s attacks, to more people struggling with the rising cost of living and increased risks of wildfires.

From left, gubernatorial candidates Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, during CNN’s California Gubernatorial Debate at CNN’s studio in Burbank on Sept. 30, 2026. The debate was moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.  (Grace Widyatmadja/CNN)
In America’s history, only 11 Latines have served as governor — ever. There have been three Black and Asian governors each, and women have only served as governor 44 times. Those numbers are quite paltry when considering that more than 2,300 white men have served as governor since our nation was founded. (Romualdo Pacheco served as governor of California for less than a year in 1875, but was elevated from lieutenant governor to finish out a term and was not elected.)

The 68-year-old Becerra came into the race with more than three decades of experience, serving in the California State Assembly, Congress, as California’s attorney general, and as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Biden Administration.

He highlights his upbringing as a working-class child of Mexican immigrants who forged a reputation in politics as a policy nerd, Mora said.

“Should the voters of California elect Xavier Becerra, he would be the first Latino governor in over a century — that within itself is monumental,” said Christian Arana, vice president of civic power and policy with the San Francisco-based Latino Community Foundation.

Latinos, Arana said, making up 40% of California’s population, comprise the second largest voting block in the state with nearly 9 million eligible voters — and contribute more than a trillion dollars to the state’s GDP. And, let’s not forget that half of the children in California are Latine.

“To have somebody potentially look like you and also share the experiences that you might have is pretty significant,” Arana told me.

Becerra’s ascent to frontrunner seemed unlikely before he won the June primary, beating out a crowded field of Democratic candidates. Former East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell was considered the top contender, but he suspended his campaign in April amid allegations of sexual assault.

Many of Swalwell’s supporters moved to line up behind Becerra, propelling him from a long shot into a position to make history.

“Imagine the positive impact that will have on the identities and aspirations of Latino/a kids throughout the State of California,” Hayward Mayor Mark Salinas wrote in an April Facebook post.

Sen. Monique Limón listens during an informational hearing by the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency in San Clemente, California, on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023. LOSSAN is the Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo-San Diego rail corridor. (Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
Becerra’s rise happens at a time when three other Latines currently hold prominent roles: Monique Limón serves as the Senate President pro Tempore, Robert Rivas is speaker of the state Assembly and Alex Padilla serves as U.S. senator.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Latinos have collectively arrived in state politics, said Sonja Díaz, a civil rights attorney, policy adviser and political expert. But it does show that we are not sitting on the sidelines.

On her Substack, “Unseen Fortitude,” Díaz wrote, “Representation matters. But representation without any accountability for doing (hacer) and delivering (cumplir) is merely symbolism. Democracies need more than symbolism, and Latino leaders are tired of being calm, quiet and told to wait.”

In the 1990s, California voters passed Proposition 187, a law that would have denied public services to undocumented immigrants.

It was ultimately ruled unconstitutional and never implemented, but that experience sparked a surge of Latino participation in politics in California, Díaz said. Still, the Democratic Party has depended on Latino voters in California without doing enough to elevate Latino candidates.

For Becerra to become the likely winner is “a historical feat because of the willful neglect of both major parties to integrate Latino candidates and Latino interest in places like California,” Díaz told me. “It is because of the infrastructure and the systemic decision-making that Latino leaders made in the ’80s and ’90s, we are where we are today. And, I think that that is huge.”

Political parties and candidates need to do a better job engaging with Latino voters, Arana said. A recent LCF survey of Latino voters in California found that 40% had not been contacted by any candidate or party for the upcoming election.

At the same time, Latine voters in California tend to have lower turnout than other groups — 47% of Latinos are considered likely voters compared with 54% of Asian Americans, 54% of African Americans and 65% of whites, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Arana said many voters don’t show up at the polls because they don’t feel like their vote will make a difference or that politicians care about them.

The three experts I talked to all agreed that for Becerra to not just represent Latinos, but actually deliver results, he needs to address issues that affect Californians of all backgrounds — namely the lack of affordability and rising cost of living, but also concerns about climate change and the threat of AI eliminating jobs.

Becerra has been criticized for not making specific promises, but has talked about the need to build more housing, make healthcare more accessible, reduce homelessness, prepare for natural disasters and fight the current presidential administration that has been hostile toward California and immigrant communities.

Christian Arana, vice president of policy at the Latino Community Foundation, on Political Breakdown. (Guy Marzorati/KQED)
“There is an expectation that he is going to deliver, right? Because he’s one of us,” Arana said.

“At the end of the day, the governor of California has to operate in a system. He’s one of many actors in California. The other thing to consider is the final two years of the Trump presidency. We have yet to see what else may be coming down the pipeline.”

California governors propose a state budget, Díaz said, which is the principal way to influence policy and programs that can directly impact the cost of living and quality of life issues that many Latinos care about.

“There needs to be rebudgeting that ensures that the material conditions, the social, economic and cultural material conditions of households on the ground are improved,” she said. “There’s a myriad of things where the next governor can and will make a difference.”

In 2009, a group of 25 students at Eagle Rock Elementary were asked by students at Cal Poly Pomona to draw their dream campus. Nearly all sketched schools with trees, farms and ponds.

The college students took the children’s ideas and drew up a plan that eventually helped transform the Los Angeles Unified school, located between Pasadena and Glendale, from 90% asphalt into a campus flush with trees, gardens and outdoor classrooms.

But nearly two decades later, many Los Angeles schools are still waiting for their greenery transformation. An EdSource analysis found that 249 — or 26% — of LAUSD’s 934 schools have less than 5% tree canopy.

“Imagine standing out on the asphalt. It’s a very hot day, and we see this grass patch, and it’s not that much cooler,” said Lauren McKenna, a senior program manager for Green Schoolyards America. “There’s a few trees, and we’re saying, imagine standing under that one tree. And, imagine there were like 50 more trees.”

Eagle Rock Elementary.

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Los Angeles County has the greatest number of schools among counties in the state located in areas with high heat scores. Many of those campuses lack adequate shade.

That situation was apparent on Oct. 5, when the Los Angeles area saw five straight days of temperatures at or above 100 degrees. Then, more than 9 in 10 LAUSD schools were in an area with high or severe heat risk. 238 schools — serving more than 110,000 students — have trees covering 5% or less of student play and rest areas.

LAUSD officials say they are trying to change that. The board passed a resolution in 2022 to increase green space on school campuses, and many schools have undergone major transformations since then. But parents at schools where there hasn’t been as much progress say they are still waiting.

“Summers are shape shifting in a lot of ways, but it’s not like it’s unpredictable. We know these things are coming,” said Víctor Sánchez, executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, whose children attend schools in the Highland Park neighborhood. On the asphalt surfaces at his child’s school, he said, temperatures sometimes surpass 120 degrees.

A resolution in the making 

When the board adopted in 2022 its initiative to have 30% of its campuses covered in green space by 2035, only 16% of campuses met that benchmark.

Greening schools and increasing tree canopies aren’t synonymous, but there is substantial overlap. More broadly, greening aims to reduce asphalt on campuses while incorporating outdoor spaces, trees, gardens and other natural elements.

Currently, 27% of LAUSD schools meet the district’s greening goals, according to Christos Chrysiliou, chief eco-sustainability officer, who oversees the district’s greening efforts. More than 80% of the district’s highest-need elementary schools also have a greening project that has been completed, is underway or is planned.

The majority of these projects are funded through voter-approved school facilities bonds, Chrysiliou said, including the $9 billion bond L.A. voters passed in 2024. The bond measure directed $1.2 billion to outdoor areas and play spaces, including school greening projects, he said.

Additional grants from CAL FIRE and the California Natural Resources Agency have also helped fund the work.

But progress has varied across the district. At schools like Eagle Rock Elementary, greening projects began decades ago, and the trees are mature. At Esperanza Elementary in the Westlake area, by contrast, newly planted trees have years of growth ahead.

LAUSD’s Esperanza Elementary with newly planted trees and greenery.

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“This is more than a beautiful schoolyard. This is what environmental justice looks like,” said LAUSD Board Vice President Rocío Rivas at an August ribbon cutting ceremony at Esperanza Elementary.

“Every child deserves access to green, healthy spaces where they can learn, play, connect with nature, regardless of their zip code.”

Equitable access to shade 

While LAUSD has set their goal at 30%, Kelly Turner, a professor of urban planning and geography at UCLA, said that amount of green space won’t always lead to the desired benefits.

“Los Angeles is huge and spans many different climate regions,” Turner said. “So, a school in the valley versus a school in the Inland Empire versus a school in central or coastal LA, they’re all going to have very different climate conditions and therefore different needs.”

LAUSD prioritizes schools based on CalEnviroScreen, a dataset measuring communities based on pollutants, and Cal-Adapt extreme heat data. Schools with the highest rankings are addressed first, Chrysiliou said.

Elementary schools with less than 10% green space are also prioritized, as is enrollment, so projects can “help the most students,” he added.

“We want these kinds of greening projects to benefit the students with the most need and the fewest options for green space at home,” said Claire Latané, a professor of landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, whose students participated in the 2009 effort at Eagle Rock Elementary.

In 180 LAUSD schools, trees cover more than 15% of the areas where students play and rest, about 22% on average. In 249 schools, trees shade 5% or less, an average of just 3%.

There’s an equity component, too. While 76% of students at high-canopy schools are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, 88% of students at low-canopy campuses qualify.

“Equity and access are central to the district’s approach,” Chrysiliou said. “Greening funds goes first to schools with the least green space in the communities hit hardest by pollution, extreme heat and economic hardship.”

Alinne Gonzalez has two children in the district who attend schools in the sometimes sweltering Van Nuys area, one in first grade and one in 10th. Back in 2022 when the district passed its resolution stating its greening goals, Gonzalez recalled thinking that while her eldest son might not get to enjoy a tree canopy, at least her youngest would.

Progress has been slow, she said. Some younger trees have been planted, but there still isn’t much shade.

She and other parents have been growing frustrated and have been calling on the district to speed up its progress.

“They keep saying it’s going to get done,” Gonzalez said. “…But we’re not going to let up. We’re going to keep going until it happens for us.”