Tag Archives: Pollution

By Fredrica Syren: Traditionally, the fashion industry ranks third among major industries contributing to pollution, and is second in water use. Making one pair of stonewashed jeans requires 500 gallons of water. On top of this, cotton is being used as one of its major raw materials, and cotton production relies …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: Let’s be honest about plastic. And I mean inconveniently honest. Plastic is found in everything these days: food, hygiene products, phones, computers, cars, even gum. Here is the harsh truth: plastic never goes away and most of it — like grocery bags, micro beads, straws and bottles …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: Cotton is one of the most common and popular textiles; however, what most people don’t know is that cotton is of the world’s dirtiest crops due to heavy use of pesticides. The really scary part is that every conventional cotton product — clothing, personal care items, bedding …

Read More »

By Larraine Roulston: Utilizing timber, plastic, steel, aluminum and glass, as well as expensive metals that are found in electronic equipment, come at a cost to the earth and should be reused as many times as possible. As our planet’s resources are limited, recycling has become one of the many environmental efforts that we …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: It’s a sad fact that humans already have added more than 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic to the ocean. For lots of people, though, it’s hard to connect how our daily habits might be adding to this huge amount of plastic. Ok, so we already have heard …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: It’s been a little over seven months since Scott Pruitt became the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and under his leadership the EPA  has seen lots of changes. Scott Pruitt spent six years as the Oklahoma’s attorney general, suing the very same agency he now …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: Air pollution is one of the worst environmental health-related crises we face today. Breathing is something most of us take for granted but unfortunately, with every breath we take, we also inhale lots of pollution. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released at the end of …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren a.k.a. Green Mom: You might have seen on Facebook or Instagram that I have joined the Plastic-Free July challenge. I know it might seem as though it would not be much of a challenge for me, who constantly nags about plastic, but the truth is that I’m …

Read More »

By Fredrica Syren: President Trump followed through on his threat to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement. It was signed by 195 countries in 2015 as an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in average global temperatures to below 2 degrees. When it was needed …

Read More »

By Kim Robson: Cleaning up toxic chemicals and heavy metals from soil is generally an onerous, expensive and time-consuming task involving chemical and mechanical processes. In my tiny mountain community of Julian, there’s long been an empty lot growing weeds on the corner of a busy intersection. Surely some developer …

Read More »