Environmental Health

"Vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing chemical released in the February train derailment disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, contaminates many communities in the U.S. due to pollution from plastics manufacturing plants, according to a new report."

"As seagulls circled above and tourists watched in confusion, Duncan Holmes steered his boat through thousands of dead fish bobbing at the surface of the River Thurne in east England."

"The plastics industry says heating and treating plastic waste with chemicals enables it to make new plastics. But environmentalists say that process, emitting large amounts of climate and air pollution, isn’t recycling and isn’t green."

"When Shell Chemical Appalachia announced the start of a massive plastics manufacturing facility last November in western Pennsylvania, [it] ... touted the company’s “strong and innovative safety focus.” But now, just six months later, the plant has been the site of multiple malfunctions, including the leakage of benzene, a known carcinogen, along with other pollutants last month."

"Dust storms can contribute to massive highway pileups and turn day to night in an instant".

"Twenty California condors in northern Arizona and southern Utah have died since March, and half of the endangered birds tested positive for a strain of avian flu, according to authorities."

"Although it seems like everyone in D.C. is buzzing about a “climate farm bill,” some of the most impactful changes, including crop diversification and shifting diets from meat toward plants, are barely on the negotiating table."

"Wildfires regularly sweep through California, destroying forests and threatening homes. But a recent study shows an unexpected danger of the fires: They can shut down, or prevent access to, hospitals and other inpatient facilities."