What do mushrooms, tires and soda bottles have in common? They are all being used, recycled or even upcycled through innovative programs that prevent waste from entering the environment.

Around the dump, impoverished Brazilians live, work and play in the discards of consumerism. Toxic chemicals, fetid liquid, and a river of plastic trash all pollute the salt water around the mangroves, which eventually runs out to the sea.

Until Congress stands up to the chemical industry lobby and does the right thing by reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act, parents everywhere will continue to read books about the issues, educate themselves about safer alternatives and take action. That's not hysterical. That's heroic.

In California we recently won a victory when BPA was banned from baby bottles and sippy cups. Even before the ban, some producers were eliminating BPA from their products. My daughter's pink sippy cup, for example, was labeled "BPA-free." So why would I still worry?

You're no eco-dummy. You don't need to do a lick of research to know that a product that comes in every hue of the rainbow -- and then some -- is anything but natural.

Eva Longoria, who plays the self-involved Gabrielle Solis on ABC's Desperate Housewives, takes on extracurricular projects that set her far apart from her shallow onscreen persona.

When you can't win on the evidence, invoke the law and pray the webmob will carry the water for you. Unfortunately, that has been the strategy of activists when science policy is in play.

Actress and mother Jessica Alba is traveling to Washington DC next week to lend her name and star power to an extremely worthy cause: reducing our exposure to unsafe chemicals.

Bad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future.

No science based agency in the US, Europe or elsewhere has found direct links between phthalates and human health. But this doesn't stop some groups from plying on consumer fears.