By ALEXA ST. JOHN

Kristina Smithe was running the California International Marathon in 2019, grabbing cups of water to stay hydrated, when she started to think about how much waste such events produce. On the flight home, she did the math: 9,000 runners, 17 aid stations and something like 150,000 cups used once and thrown away.

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“I was just shocked that, even in California, it’s not sustainable,” Smithe said.

That sparked her idea for something more durable — a lightweight, pliable silicone cup that could be used again and again. After working out a design, Smithe ordered her first shipment and tested them at a race in 2021.

Now her business, Hiccup Earth, has 70,000 cups that Smithe rents out to interested races to replace the typical white paper cups that can pile up like snowdrifts at busy water stops.

Billions of disposable cups are used around the world each year. These cups are often made of plastic, but even if they are made of paper, they typically have a plastic lining that makes it difficult for them to biodegrade. And making these cups, and disposing or burning them, generates planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

“That’s just a small subset of the amount of plastic waste that we produce, but it’s a pretty visible one,” said Sarah Gleeson, solutions research manager and plastics waste expert at climate nonprofit Project Drawdown. “It’s something that generates a lot of waste, and waste — depending on what exactly it’s made of — can really last in landfills for hundreds of years.”

As she was getting her business off the ground, Smithe emailed race directors to ask if their event used disposable cups.

“The answer was always yes,” she said. Her response: “If you’re looking for a sustainable solution, I have one.”

Now, she rents out the cups by the thousand, driving them to events in massive totes and leaving bins with the company logo for collection after use. Smithe picks up the used cups and washes them in a proprietary dishwasher.

At the PNC Women Run the Cities race in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, in early May, Smithe helped quench the thirst of thousands of runners, dropping off 17-gallon tote bags full of her flexible blue cups.

After that race, Smithe, 35, estimated she’s taken her cups to 137 races and spared 902,000 disposable ones from the landfill. She also says her washing process needs only 30 gallons of water per 1,500 cups. An average efficient household dishwasher uses 3 to 5 gallons for far fewer dishes.

“It’s just a solution to a problem that’s long overdue,” Smithe said.

One trade-off is that the cup rentals cost race directors more than other options. Disposable cups might run just a few cents each, while 10,000 Hiccup cups would rent for about 15 cents each. That price drops if more cups are needed.

Gleeson, of Project Drawdown, sees the reusable cups as just one of many ways that innovators are looking to cut down on waste. Such solutions often have to be rooted in convenience and grounded in local or small applications to get more people to adopt them. Some cities, for instance, are experimenting with reusable food takeout containers that customers return to nearby drop-off spots later on.

While no one solution can fully tackle the problem, “The scalability is there,” Gleeson said. “I think in general, high adoption of these kinds of solutions is what is able to bring costs down and really maximize environmental benefits that you could get.”

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Chuck Dougherty, the owner of Water Street Inn in downtown Stillwater, has been named grand marshal of this year’s Lumberjack Days parade in Stillwater.

The parade will be at 11 a.m. July 20.

Chuck Dougherty, owner of Water Street Inn in downtown Stillwater. (Courtesy of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce)

Dougherty is known for his significant contributions to the hospitality industry and community development in the St. Croix River Valley, said Robin Anthony, president of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce and its foundation.

“His enduring impact on Stillwater is reflected in his dedication to preserving the city’s history, enhancing its hospitality offerings, and actively participating in civic initiatives,” Anthony said.

Alongside his wife, Judy, Dougherty has been the owner and operator of the historic Water Street Inn since 1995. The Doughertys also own Cover Park Manor Bed & Breakfast in Oak Park Heights.

Chuck Dougherty serves as the chairman of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Oak Park Heights City Council, and is on the board of the Stillwater/Oak Park Heights Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce Foundation is currently accepting parade unit applications and seeking parade sponsors, Anthony said.

Find more information about the Stillwater Lumberjack Days parade, go to greaterstillwaterchamber.com.

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By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a strange new object in our Milky Way galaxy.

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An international team reported Wednesday that this celestial object — perhaps a star, pair of stars or something else entirely — is emitting X-rays around the same time it’s shooting out radio waves. What’s more, the cycle repeats every 44 minutes, at least during periods of extreme activity.

Located 15,000 light-years away in a region of the Milky Way brimming with stars, gas and dust, this object could be a highly magnetized dead star like a neutron or white dwarf, Curtin University’s Ziteng Andy Wang said in an email from Australia.

Or it could be “something exotic” and unknown, said Wang, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory spotted the X-ray emissions by chance last year while focusing on a supernova remnant, or the remains of an exploded star. Wang said it was the first time X-rays had been seen coming from a so-called long-period radio transient, a rare object that cycles through radio signals over tens of minutes.

Given the uncertain distance, astronomers can’t tell if the weird object is associated with the supernova remnant or not. A single light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.

The hyperactive phase of this object — designated ASKAP J1832−091 — appeared to last about a month. Outside of that period, the star did not emit any noticeable X-rays. That could mean more of these objects may be out there, scientists said.

“While our discovery doesn’t yet solve the mystery of what these objects are and may even deepen it, studying them brings us closer to two possibilities,” Wang said. “Either we are uncovering something entirely new, or we’re seeing a known type of object emitting radio and X-ray waves in a way we’ve never observed before.”

Launched in 1999, Chandra orbits tens of thousands of miles (kilometers) above Earth, observing some of the hottest, high-energy objects in the universe.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The intersection of Snelling and St. Clair avenues will be closed intermittently beginning Friday as construction in the area wraps up.

The intersection will shut down at 6 a.m. Friday, May 30, and open again at 6 a.m. Sunday, June 1, to accommodate Grand Old Day traffic.

The intersection will be shut down again at 9 p.m. Monday until 6 a.m. Tuesday, then again from 9 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday, June 4, when work is expected to be complete.

The resurfacing of a half-mile of Snelling Avenue between St. Clair and Grand avenues began last year and includes building bump-outs and ADA-compliant crossings at all intersections.

The work wraps up with replacement of the signal system at Snelling and St. Clair avenues and resurfacing of the intersection and installing ADA-compliant crossings.

For more information, visit: mndot.gov/metro/projects/snellingave-stpaul.

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