We've written about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch before, and now a team from Agalita.org has made a principled effort to bring more publicity to this issue. They have created a plastic flotilla, a "polyethelyne" Kon Tiki if you will,and traveled to Hawaii in search of the giant junk island. In the process of trawling for plastic pollution they have also opened up a fish they caught to see what else is inside. Well, the result is even more freightening for those into eating any fish not, as in the case of this motley crew, just sushi. Check out their video here.

It's like preventative medicine for pest control. Instead of treating a chronic problem by applying chemicals and toxins inside the home or the body, Integrated Pest Management (IPM)is "an approach that primarily involves improving sanitary and structural conditions to deny pests food, water, harborage, and movement, and includes the judicious use of pesticides [only after] an evaluation of need and the hazard to human occupants."
The results of an Environmental Health Perspectives lengthy scientific study with the New York Public Housing Authority are avialble here which talks about the success of IPM.
And if you want more aggregated daily reports of cutting edge scientific health reserach for the public you need to see the website www.evironmentalhealthnews.org and subscirbe to their "Above The Fold" top environmental health stories from around the globe.

Like we didn't already suspect it, but here it is, officially a concern by our own County's Health Department:

"The Alachua County Health Department has reviewed the results of recent soil samples taken from the easement along the west border of the Koppers industrial site and in street rights-of-way approximately 100 feet west of the Koppers site. Levels of dioxins, arsenic, and benzo(a)pyrene in some surface soil samples tested are above the State residential standards.

While the preliminary test results do not indicate an immediate health hazard to area residents, the Health Department recommends the following precautions:

Children should avoid playing in the 15'-20' City of Gainesville easement just west of the Koppers facility western boundary fence between NW 26 Avenue and NW 30 Avenue. Children under the age of six are at a higher risk of exposure from incidental ingestion (swallowing).

Area residents should practice good general hygiene including hand washing with soap and water after contact with bare soil.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is the lead agency for environmental monitoring and clean-up of the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site and has indicated they will require the responsible parties to conduct additional sampling to further define the area and extent of contamination. The Health Department will continue to evaluate the health risks as more test data becomes available.

The Alachua County Health Department will continue to work with Alachua County, and the City of Gainesville to inform citizens about health risks associated with this issue. The three agencies are working to schedule a public meeting in the near future."

So we will have to continue to "wait and see" what our lead agency, the US EPA, will do with all of this information. And oh, if you want to see what this really looks like for the residents who have property backing up to this 30-year-old Superfund site that has never been made to take any clean-up action, take a look at this arial photo.

Minnesota becomes the first state to ban the sale of sippy cup products, baby bottles and food containers that contain the endochrine disruptor Bisphenol A. Will Florida step up to the plate next?
full story here:
http://www.greenerdesign.com/news/2009/05/11/minnesota-bisphenol-a-ban

If you haven't seen this yet, please check it out as they have been getting a lot of publicity lately, including FOX news calling Annie Leonard "Marx with a ponytail"...and I thought Richard Marx was just a faded pop icon memory...

http://storyofstuff.org/resources.html

Article spotlighting some subsidized work in New York City that peels back the myth that green building is more expensive

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/nyregion/11bigcity.html?_r=1

Why not click here then to view our June 2009 Newsletter, DIG (DO IT GREEN!)

Click here to view our May 2009 Newsletter, DIG