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• Sites contaminated by toxic ‘forever chemicals’ are much more widespread than previously thought, researchers find

  by Joy ScrogumSep 17, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Northeastern University, 9/10/25

  Toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” are in everything from Band-Aids and clothing to water and floss. However, new research reveals they are potentially even more widespread in the U.S. than previously thought. The research done by Northeastern University’s PFAS Project Lab reveals that while there are about 2,200 known sites of PFAS contamination in the U.S., there are close to another 80,000 likely contaminated sites. It presents what the researchers say is a much more complete — and stark — picture of PFAS contamination while also presenting legislators, communities and environmental activists with a roadmap of where to focus their efforts. 

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• Banned pesticides found in clouds, sparking new health concerns

  by Joy ScrogumSep 16, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: U.S. Right to Know, 9/11/25

  Pesticides banned years ago in the European Union are drifting through the skies and turning up in clouds above France, raising concerns about how long these toxins persist and how far they can travel, with potentially harmful global health impacts, according to a pathbreaking new study.  The research, published in Environmental Science & Technology, is the first to detect dozens of agricultural chemicals—including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other substances—suspended in cloud water droplets. That means pesticides not only linger in the environment but also move through the atmosphere and fall back to Earth in rain or snow, sometimes at levels exceeding European safe drinking water limits, the research suggests. 

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• USC study shows how PFAS disrupt healthy function in human liver cells

  by Joy ScrogumSep 15, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: USC Keck School of Medicine, 9/10/25

  Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), manmade chemicals that accumulate in the body over time, have been linked to liver disease and cancer, but it is not yet clear how they cause damage. Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC used a lab model of the human liver to analyze changes at the cellular level, finding that some PFAS triggered fat accumulation and others caused cell damage linked to cancer. The study was just published in the journal Environment International. 

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• Allbirds debuts waste-based shoes

  by Laura BarnesSep 12, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Trellis, 8/21/25

  In a footwear first, a new Allbirds’ sneaker features material that has been recycled from polycotton waste. The Remix runners, which retail for $140, are made with lyocell recycled by startup Circ from used polycotton T-shirts and other textiles. The midsoles are recycled from manufacturing-scrap foam by partner Blumaka, and the laces are made of recycled polyester.

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• Using pollen to make paper, sponges, and more

  by Laura BarnesSep 11, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Knowable Magazine, 8/8/25

  At first glance, Nam-Joon Cho’s lab at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University looks like your typical research facility — scientists toiling away, crowded workbenches, a hum of machinery in the background. But the orange-yellow stains on the lab coats slung on hooks hint at a less-usual subject matter under study. The powdery stain is pollen: microscopic grains containing male reproductive cells that trees, weeds and grasses release seasonally. But Cho isn’t studying irksome effects like hay fever, or what pollen means for the plants that make it. Instead, the material scientist has spent a decade pioneering and refining techniques to remodel pollen’s rigid outer shell — made of a polymer so tough it’s sometimes called “the diamond of the plant world” — transforming the grains to a jam-like consistency.

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• Recycling lithium from old electric vehicle batteries could be done cheaply with new electrochemical process

  by Laura BarnesSep 10, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Wisconsin, 8/26/25

  With ever more electric vehicles on the road, regulators and automakers are considering what can be done with the millions of batteries that power EVs after they’re spent. Even when their useful life is over, EV batteries contain valuable lithium that could theoretically be recycled and used in new batteries, but coming up with a cost-effective way to do so is critical. A group of University of Wisconsin–Madison chemists are hopeful they’ve found a solution and they’re already filing patents and courting global carmakers.

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• Data centers consume massive amounts of water – companies rarely tell the public exactly how much

  by Laura BarnesSep 9, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: The Conversation, 8/19/25

  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers analyzed public records, government documents, and sustainability reports compiled by top data center companies and found that technology companies don’t always reveal how much water their data centers use.

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• UMaine unveils app to gauge AI’s environmental cost

  by Laura BarnesSep 8, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Maine, 8/5/25

  A new app, “What Uses More,” aims to reveal the environmental footprint of tasks completed with artificial intelligence, encouraging users to examine critically the energy and water consumption of their digital activities. 

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• Heat-styling hair care products release billions of nanoparticles that can accumulate in lungs, engineers find

  by Joy ScrogumSep 5, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Purdue University, 8/20/25

  A typical morning hair-care routine can expose you to as much immediate nanoparticle pollution as standing in dense highway traffic, report Purdue University engineers. A Purdue research team led by Nusrat Jung, an assistant professor in the Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering, and her Ph.D. student Jianghui Liu, found that a 10–20-minute heat-based hair care routine exposes a person to upward of 10 billion nanoparticles that are directly deposited into their lungs. These particles can lead to serious health risks such as respiratory stress, lung inflammation, and cognitive decline. The team's findings are published in Environmental Science & Technology.
  
  
  

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• New wastewater tech tackles fatbergs at the source

  by Joy ScrogumSep 4, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: RMIT University via Phys.org, 8/20/25

  A new wastewater treatment system developed by RMIT University researchers could help prevent fatbergs—solid masses of fat, oil and grease (FOG) that clog sewers and cost water utilities globally billions to remove each year. A team from RMIT's Effective Technologies and Tools (WETT) Research Center has developed a solution that combines a redesigned grease interceptor with a smart chemical treatment—more than doubling fat removal rates in commercial kitchen wastewater. The new design features a series of physical barriers, or baffles, inside a grease interceptor to slow wastewater flow and separate larger fat particles. A small dose of alum, a common water treatment chemical, is then added to clump smaller, suspended fats for easy removal.
  
  The research article, "Performance optimization for the removal of fat, oil, and grease from food service establishment wastewater using a novel grease interceptor," is published in ACS ES&T Water.

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