The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.
06/06/2026 New York Times Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too. - The birds will choose artificial (plastic) accouterments over natural ones when given the choice.
06/05/2026 CNN Health Ultraprocessed food scientists say Americans are ‘fed up’ with industry and government inaction - Up to 70% of Americans want companies banned from advertising ultraprocessed foods on children’s television, while up to 87% want government safety testing for all laboratory-made chemicals long before they can be used in any food product, according to the survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. According to the US Centers for Disease and Prevention, 53% of American adults get most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. For children ages 1 to 18, the percentage rises to 62%.
06/04/2026 The Conversation Poison or poverty: the impossible economic choices facing Ghana’s e‑waste workers - Agbogbloshie, in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, is a sprawling, open-air scrapyard located next to a lagoon and a growing informal settlement. Roughly 6,000 people dismantle, recycle and burn old and broken electronics there. Informal recycling provides an income for workers which is often relatively better than other available work. But the side effects of burning plastic and metal or using acid to extract minerals from the e-waste are devastating to human health and the natural environment.
06/05/2026 The Conversation A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems - A large amount of plastic waste gets shipped overseas. A new study analyzed what happens when plastic waste is shipped to lower- and middle-income countries, where open burning is a common way of dealing with excess waste. The study found pronounced increases in toxic air pollution. When plastic burns, it releases particularly toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can penetrate deep into people’s bodies, along with gases that include carbon monoxide, styrene gas and hydrogen cyanide. It also releases persistent organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins. These particles and gases have been linked to health risks ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular disease to cancer and reproductive and neurological disorders. Since 2021, seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws focused on packaging: Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland. However, it will take time to see the effects.
06/02/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Tire Pollution May Threaten Human Health, Study Finds - Tiny particles of rubber cast off by car tires, which have long been known to harm wildlife, may also pose a risk to humans.
05/06/2026 Toxic-Free Future Endocrine-Disrupting Plastic Chemicals in Breast Milk - Testing found bisphenols, melamine and related chemicals, and triclosan in breast milk samples, pointing to widespread exposure from everyday products and materials, including plastics, food-contact materials, receipts, antimicrobial treatments, and many other products. To understand the potential health risks from tire pollution, researchers exposed human immune cells to a mixture of tire-derived pollutants as well as 6PPD-quinone (one of the known pollutants from tire rubber) on its own. The mixture caused rapid cell death, among other harms.
05/18/2026 NPR Thousands of U.S. countertop workers could have damaged lungs - Occupational health experts who have petitioned California to ban quartz say this material "is too toxic to fabricate and install safely, and education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by this product. A few weeks ago, in the first quartz and silicosis lawsuit to come to trial outside of California, a jury in Colorado awarded damages to an injured worker - finding that actions by several companies led to his illnesses.
05/19/2026 Planetizen Public works officials indicate alarming decline in condition of water and sewer systems - According to a survey in the National League of Cities’ 2026 Municipal Infrastructure Conditions Report, the confidence of public works and city officials in their water systems has dropped significantly, with just 39% of officials surveyed saying their own water and sewer infrastructure is 'satisfactory,' down from 82% in 2022.
06/03/2026 Artnet Crystal Bridges’s New Expansion Makes Room for More of Its Story - Crystal Bridges is now set to unveil its new 114,000-square-foot expansion on June 6–7, complemented by five acres of specially landscaped trails, gardens, a stream, and a 15,000-square-foot pond, all situated within the greater 134-acre forested park that the museum calls home. (Maybe time to make another visit the museum/Bentonville, AR).
05/28/2026 NASA A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes - For most of the past four decades, observations from the Landsat satellite record show that humans have dominated changes to the U.S. landscape. Recent research revealed a shift in that trend, suggesting that disasters might be catching up.
