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Dear EarthTalk: Are wood burning stoves and fireplaces bad for our health? -Name withheld During the cold gaps of the winter day, a warm, cozy fire may seem like the perfect solution. But burning wood releases far more than just heat-including materials l

Foam polluted with PFAS lines the Huron River in southeast Michigan. Credit: MountainFae, Wikimedia Commons. Dear EarthTalk: What's new in the fight to get PFAS out of our drinking water and bloodstreams? -Michelle K., Reno, NV PFAS, or Polyfluoroalkyl su

The EU recycled 42.1 per cent of its plastic packaging in 2023. Paper and cardboard, the most recycled packaging material in Europe, ran at roughly twice that. That gap is why the padded paper envelope is taking ground from the poly mailer across European

Most people understand that throwing something away does not erase its environmental footprint. What happens next depends heavily on the material. A bag of ordinary household trash and a container of corrosive chemicals cannot travel through the same wast

Fuel economy often dominates conversations about greener driving, but gasoline is only one part of a vehicle's environmental footprint. Manufacturing replacement parts consumes resources, tires shed particles as they wear, and everyday driving habits infl

A home renovation can transform far more than the appearance of a property. It offers homeowners an opportunity to reconsider how the house uses energy and other valuable resources. With careful choices from the start, renovation work can respect the envi

A strip of vegetation between farmland and a stream can influence what happens well beyond the property line. Rain moving across agricultural land can carry soil and nutrients toward waterways, while unstable banks can send additional sediment downstream.

Waste usually becomes visible at the end of a product's useful life, when a container enters a recycling stream or unwanted material heads toward a landfill. Yet many decisions that determine how much waste society creates happen much earlier, beginning w

On a hot summer afternoon, the surface of a conventional roof can run up to 90F warmer than the air around it, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Multiply that by every warehouse, school and office block in a city, and it becomes clear

We have taken clean air for granted in the U.S. for the last half century, but that could be changing very soon thanks to Donald Trump. Credit: Pexels.com. Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that Trump is working actively to cut back clean air protections that ha