Category: Public health
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Toxic chemical reactions fuel crises at L.A. County landfills
Photo: The Sunshine Canyon landfill lies just beyond the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Area residents have complained of odors and dust from the landfill. Hundreds of feet underground, in a long-dormant portion of Chiquita Canyon landfill, tons of garbage have been smoldering for months due to an enigmatic chemical reaction. Although operators of…
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Stricter Microplastics Regulations Are on the Horizon. Here’s How California Manufacturers Should Prepare
According to the American Chemical Association, the average American consumes up to 121,000 microplastic particles each year—through air, water, and soil—and people who drink only bottled water could consume an additional 90,000. Now, California is taking the lead in trying to regulate the presence of microplastics in drinking water, with significant implications for manufacturers in the…
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Military firefighters’ ‘forever chemical’ exposures remain unrecognized by the VA.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the armed forces began employing aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) on many U.S. military bases, a fire-extinguishing solution designed by the Navy in collaboration with 3M to quickly snuff out difficult blazes. The foam’s remarkable surfactant qualities were the result of the per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) within, a…
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Microplastics could trigger cloud formation and affect the weather, new study suggests
Sunset scenery at Mount Tai in Tai’an, east China’s Shandong Province on May 23, 2018. Jia Guangrui/SIPA/Zuma CNN — Microplastics are turning up in unusual places increasingly often as they filter into nearly every facet of life on Earth. They’ve been discovered in drinking water, food, air and even in blood. Now, scientists have found that these tiny particles might…
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Opinion: Our water is polluted with ‘forever chemicals.’ Here’s how some agencies are stepping in.
In this June 7, 2018, file photo, PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, foam gathers at the the Van Etten Creek dam in Oscoda Township, Mich., near Wurtsmith Air Force Base. These man-made chemicals have been used in industry and consumer products for decades and today can be found in nearly half of the tap…
