"Fire departments face liability risks and potentially huge costs and uncertainties as they switch from PFAS-enabled firefighting foam, according to lawyers and groups working with them."
"It's not possible to remove all traces of lead from the food supply, because the heavy metal is found throughout the environment and can be absorbed by plants. So traces are found in the vegetables, fruits and grains that are used to make baby food. But as toxic metal exposure can be harmful to developing brains, the Food and Drug Administration is issuing new guidelines to reduce children's exposure to the lowest level possible."
"After years of sending leachate from the Coventry landfill downstream to a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Vermont, Casella Waste Systems is building an on-site facility to treat its runoff. Amid rising public concern over PFAS and new or forthcoming regulations, an increasing number of landfill operators across the country are considering similar moves."
"Despite an injection of funding, the agency still has not recovered from an exodus of scientists and policy experts, both insiders and critics say."
"WASHINGTON — The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration. The chemicals chief said her staff can’t keep up with a mounting workload. The enforcement unit is prosecuting fewer polluters than at any time in the past two decades.
"This week, the period underwear brand Thinx made public that it had reached a settlement in a 3-year-long class action lawsuit claiming its products contain harmful chemicals. The news of the settlement brought renewed focus on the chemical compounds at the center of the lawsuit — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or “forever chemicals” — and highlighted the broader issue of toxic ingredients in period products as a whole."
"A chaotic start to the new Republican-led House may spell trouble for the 2023 farm bill."
"The EPA will begin a rulemaking aiming to reduce PFAS in landfill leachate discharges and will expand or begin studies on PFAS pollution from textile manufacturers and sewage treatment plants, the agency said."
"There’s now more than just smoke hanging around the site of an underground landfill fire near Birmingham. In the two days since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed up to take control of the scene, the area has been abuzz with EPA trucks, bulldozers and excavators moving in to begin putting out the fire."
"Racist beauty standards are driving the use of beauty products that are often contaminated with chemicals that alter the human endocrine system, cause organ damage, and spur cancer in communities of color, according to new research."
"Industry is pursuing various technologies to help solve the global plastic waste problem, but environmentalists say new recycling techniques only make environmental problems worse."
