blog posts

• Harvard’s salt trick could turn billions of tons of hair into eco-friendly materials

  by Laura BarnesOct 7, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Harvard University, 9/17/25

  Scientists at Harvard have discovered how salts like lithium bromide break down tough proteins such as keratin—not by attacking the proteins directly, but by altering the surrounding water structure. This breakthrough opens the door to a cleaner, more sustainable way to recycle wool, feathers, and hair into valuable materials, potentially replacing plastics and fueling new industries.

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• Scientists just found out forever chemicals are shockingly acidic

  by Laura BarnesOct 6, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University at Buffalo, 9/13/25

  Scientists have uncovered that “forever chemicals” like PFAS are even more acidic than anyone realized, meaning they dissolve and spread in water with alarming ease. Using a cutting-edge method combining NMR spectroscopy and computer modeling, researchers showed that the acidity of notorious compounds like PFOA and GenX had been vastly underestimated—sometimes by factors of a thousand.

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• New and simple detection method for nanoplastics

  by Joy ScrogumOct 3, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Stuttgart, 9/8/25

  A joint team from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and the University of Melbourne in Australia has developed a new method for the straightforward analysis of tiny nanoplastic particles in environmental samples. One needs only an ordinary optical microscope and a newly developed test strip—the optical sieve. The research results have now been published in “Nature Photonics” (doi: 10.1038/s41566-025-01733-x).

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• EPR emerges to tackle vapes and a growing list of household hazardous wastes

  by Joy ScrogumOct 2, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Waste360, 9/18/25

  Household hazardous waste (HHW) is showing up on states’ and local jurisdictions’ radar, fueled by safety concerns and the exorbitant cost to manage these materials. As batteries, vapes, compressed gas cylinders, and certain other products flood waste and recycling streams, they spark fires and injure waste workers while leaving governments to shoulder most of the cleanup costs. In response, a few jurisdictions are looking at extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws, requiring producers to take responsibility for dealing with these materials at the end of life. 

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• Study assesses state-by-state efforts to take on plastic waste

  by Joy ScrogumOct 1, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Waste360, 9/16/25

  A new report by Ocean Conservancy assessed how states are doing against six benchmarks and scored them based on a five-point scale. The average score was a meager 1.5. Benchmarks included the presence or absence of policies in four areas: 1) single-use plastics, 2) microplastics, 3) reduce and reuse, and 4) producer accountability, as well as access to recycling and recycling rates. Ocean Conservancy went on to recommend what it considers the best of existing policies for improvement, and red-flagged policies it believes are thwarting progress.

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• Phthalates in everyday products may fuel breast cancer, new study warns

  by Joy ScrogumSep 30, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: U.S. Right to Know, 9/5/25

  Common chemicals in plastics, personal care products, and food packaging may drive the onset, growth, and spread of breast cancer—the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women, new research suggests. The findings, published this month [September 2025] in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, suggest phthalates hijack the body’s hormone systems, activate cancer-promoting genes, and make tumors easier to form. and harder to treat. The study raises new questions about the safety of chemicals that millions of Americans encounter every day in air, food, and water.   

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• The chronic risks from single-use plastic water bottles are dangerously understudied, new Concordia research shows

  by Joy ScrogumSep 29, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Concordia University, 9/9/25

  In a paper published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, Sarah Sajedi and colleagues from Concordia University look at the science around the health risks posed by single-use plastic water bottles. They are serious, Sajedi says, and seriously understudied. In her review of over 140 scientific articles, Sajedi writes that individuals on average ingest between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles per year, and bottled water users consume 90,000 more particles than tap water consumers. Once inside the body, these small plastics can cross biological boundaries, enter the bloodstream and reach vital organs. This can lead to chronic inflammation, oxidative stress on cells, hormonal disruption, impaired reproduction, neurological damage and various kinds of cancer. However, the long-term effects remain poorly understood due to a lack of widespread testing and standardized methods of measurement and detection.

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• This campaign will help you go electric before federal tax credits end

  by Laura BarnesSep 26, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Canary Media, 9/2/25

  Electrification advocacy nonprofit Rewiring America recently launched the Save on Better Appliances campaign. It’s a nationwide effort to help homeowners and renters lock in the incentives — the Energy-Efficient Home Improvement Credit and the Residential Clean Energy Credit — before they’re gone. 

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• AI’s ballooning energy consumption puts spotlight on data center efficiency

  by Laura BarnesSep 25, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: The Conversation, 9/3/25

  A Georgia Tech computer engineering professor who specializes in high-performance computing explains how data centers can be designed and managed to reduce their energy use.

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• New maps show how risk from ‘forever chemicals’ varies

  by Laura BarnesSep 24, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: The Conversation, 9/4/25

  To better understand the ways people are being exposed to PFAS, researchers examined four exposure pathways – drinking water contamination, food contamination, recreational exposure and industrial emissions, such as from Superfund sites, airports, military bases and manufacturing plants – across three Great Lakes states: Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. The interactive map and online dashboard that they created lets residents look up their communities’ known PFAS exposure risks and calculate their own risks. The results also offer insights for people across the U.S. who share similar environments, dietary choices and lifestyles.

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