Center for Health, Environment & Justice
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The Environmental Injustice of Electronic Waste

By Michelle Atkin An increasing number of electronic devices continue to escalate the number that are disposed of each year – in 2012 the United States produced 3.4 million tons of electronic waste! Discarded phones, tablets, computers, televisions and even washers, dryers and refrigerators are an enormous problem and only 1 million tons are recycled. Anything disposed of with an electrical component is considered e-waste and the United Nations estimates that 20-50 million tons are produced around the world each year. The U.S. disposes of 25 million TVs, 47.5 million

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June 19, 2015

Environmental and Public Health Implications of the TPP

By Dylan Lenzen This past week, the House of Representatives failed to approve a measure that would provide President Obama with “fast-track authority” in negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and eleven other countries of the pacific-rim including Japan, Vietnam, Australia, Mexico, and Canada among others. The trade agreement has been negotiated in secret for three years, and beyond leaked documents, the American public will likely not be able to view the details of the agreement until after it is approved. While President Obama supports

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June 17, 2015

EPA Takes Baby Steps in Acknowledging Fracking Dangers

The US EPA released a draft Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources earlier this month. Although still only a draft, the document marks a noticeable shift in how EPA views fracking – from basically denying that fracking posed any risk to drinking water and human health, to acknowledging that, “there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources”. I, for one, cannot believe that EPA had the guts to

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June 15, 2015

Fracking for Environmental Remediation

Most of us are familiar with hydraulic fracturing as a technique used for oil and natural gas drilling. The process uses a slurry of chemicals and sand to prop open rock fissures, allowing the release of fossil fuels. However, natural gas and oil are not the only constituents trapped in rock layers; these layers can also serve as a reservoir for contaminants. At Superfund sites and other polluted areas, the process of remediation, or cleanup, can be extended and expensive. Hydraulic fracturing has been utilized as an environmental cleanup method,

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June 13, 2015

ATSDR Fails Community Once Again

In July of 2013, an explosion occurred at the WTI/Heritage Thermal Services (HTS) hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, OH. Incinerator ash that had built up on the inside of the incinerator stack suddenly fell off causing a huge cloud of dust contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic substances to be released from the stack. An estimated 800 to 900 pounds of ash were released into the surrounding community. The plant manager advised residents to wash fruits and vegetables from their gardens and to replace food and water for

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June 10, 2015

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

By Michelle Atkin The world’s largest landfill is actually floating in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. It contains three million tons of plastic, in addition to other marine debris, and is often referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). This drifting ocean litter or gyre is one of five major global garbage patches and was discovered in 1997 by Charles Moore, a California volunteer environmentalist and sailor who was so concerned he founded the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. The size of this trash cluster is widely

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June 3, 2015
Blog Roll
Greenpeace’s The Witness
Grist
Groovy Green
Healthy Child Healthy World
Inside Prevention
It’s Getting Hot in Here
Moms Rising
Pharos
Safe Mama
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
The Soft Landing
Treehugger
Zero Waste World