Our Toxic Burden from Plastics

Every day, single-use plastics ("SUPs" bottles, bags, packaging, utensils, etc.) made from petrochemicals are thrown away in huge quantities after one use, but they will last virtually forever. SUPs are the largest component of landfills and ocean pollution. While Fresh Kills landfill in New York...

BPA: From Plastics and Cans to Your Body

You may not be familiar with the chemical bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, but there is an excellent chance that BPA is very familiar with you. BPA, a hormone-disrupting toxin, is widely used in plastics and epoxy resins, including those...

National Parks: America's "Best Idea"

"[Our national parks system is] the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, [our national parks] reflect us at our best rather than our worst." Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.

The National Park System, an American first, began with the creation of Yellowstone...

Demand for Bottled Water Evaporating

As concerns mount over bottled water's impacts on the environment and human health, bottled water sales are beginning to dry up. In America, Nielsen reports that bottled water sales fell 3.3% in the US last year.

Evian reported that its 2008 profits...

A potent symbol of large scale waste and consumer greed has been making the media rounds lately. This symbol is a physical and hard to ignore: the "away" of our throwaway society turns out to be, in part, a giant patch of broken plastic bits swirling around the Pacific Gyres...