Search

Each year, Americans use more than 100 billion plastic shopping bags, consuming an estimated 12 million barrels of oil. After a very short working life, these bags retire to landfills [...]

A thermal solar network using parabolic reflectors and old car parts. A oat that filters its own wastewater, has on-site wind power and educates passengers about the polluted waterway on [...]

Southeast False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be the site of the 2010 Olympic Village and a model neighborhood for sustainable urban planning. Once a bleak industrial scar on [...]

Following San Francisco's lead, other cities with plastic bag woes are now considering their own bans on single-use bags in grocery and drug stores. But when the progressive town of [...]

Seafood retailers in the U.S. must, by law, affix country-of-origin labels on their products (see 'Sustainable Seafood,' Eating Right, November/December 2005). The 2002 Farm Bill included this provision mandating country [...]

Last June, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive directive phasing out the city's bottled water use, citing environmental concerns and the excellent quality of municipal tap water (see [...]

The article discusses new job possibilities across several industries in the U.S. for those who have skills to bridge the divide between the old, fossil-fuel-based economy and the new, energy-efficient one. Ecotourism, which is growing at three times the rate of the tourism sector itself, is stated to provide employees with the opportunity to travel while communicating the importance of the global environment. Opportunities in planning and land use as local governments become interested in reducing their communities' carbon footprint and several adults turning to some form of alternative care offering diverse opportunities in medical and health-care systems is discussed. Information is provided on careers related to the environment in law, information technology and education.

The article offers information on the ban of plastic bags in various cities of the U.S. and concerns regarding the adoption of paper bags as an alternative. Many cities that have banned or are considering plastic bag bans include Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Portland, Oregon and California. Governments want to ban plastic bags as they have short life and clog storm drains and threatens marine wildlife. However , greater cost involved in the production of paper bags and bio degradable products is said to be a snag in the adoption of the same.

The article reports on the testing of installing artificial turf fields with crumb rubber infill. According to Nancy Alderman, the president of the environmental group Environment and Human Health Incorporated (EHHI) which suggested the infill, the infill has some green credibility because it's made of recycled rubber tires, but it poses a human health risk. Mary Jane Martina, analytical chemist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES), the group commissioned to test for any leaching of harmful chemicals as a result of heat or water contact, and her team at CAES found several compounds being emitted by the tire crumbs when subjected to heat, three of which can cause skin and eye irritation in large amounts, and one known carcinogen.