by Expand Your Consciousness
A collection of articles highlighting ways that pollution affects all living things and articles sharing innovative alternatives in a post-petroleum world.
It has long been said that sea turtles eat plastic bags because they look like jellyfish. Matthew Savoca, a doctoral student in Ecology at the University of California Davis, wasn’t content to accept this as the only reason. Surely there was more to it. He devoted his dissertation research to understanding why marine animals confused … Read more
While we want to engage with our readers about issues affecting the environment, we worry that a never-ending stream of dire news makes it seem like meaningful change is impossible. So, we decided to highlight some good news in this brief compilation of progress in reestablishing majestic cranes in Britain, an update on efforts to … Read more
An innovative company looks to end plastic pollution by using a waste product that was, until now, burned in landfills by the millions of pounds every year. What are we talking about? Avocado pits, the seeds at the heart of avocados used to make the guacamole that so many of us love. In recent years, … Read more
We love sharing stories about people making everyday products with sustainable alternatives to plastic. If you are thinking about some new sunglasses or prescription frames and you love coffee, then the Ochis Coffee line of eyeglasses might be for you. Ochis was founded by Max Havrylenko, who comes from a family that has long been … Read more
Anyone who has tried to use the glut of solar powered yard decorations that dot the aisles of lawn and garden stores knows you’re lucky if they glow past 9 pm and manage to last for an entire summer. Sure, there are a few homes and offices around our communities with large rooftop solar panels, … Read more
There are 10 rivers in the world that carry 93% of trash into the world’s oceans. “The Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, and the Niger and Nile in Africa. The Yangtze alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea.” … Read more
Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) is a global movement working to stop plastic pollution. They are adding teeth to the concept of volunteer cleanups by transforming cleanup participants into citizen scientists to produce audits of the plastics collected during cleanups to identify the brands behind the discarded plastics. In September 2019, BFFP mobilized over 72,000 … Read more
Update: “The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office filed 15 criminal charges against Cabot Oil & Gas Corp, nine of them felonies. Cabot has not yet entered a plea.” – USA Today, PressConnects, 22 June 2020. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had been running a series of articles since March of 2019 following an investigation by the Pennsylvania Department … Read more
In an eye-opening article, Consumer Reports (CR), the independent consumer advocacy and testing organization has taken on problems with the largely self-policing nature of the bottled water industry, a lack of safety inspections and follow-up by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and failure by companies to report instances when products fail to meet … Read more
The 50-year anniversary of a scary data analysis project is upon us. In 1970, an international team of researchers at MIT began a project using the most cutting-edge computer simulation program available at the time to predict when earth’s interlocking resources could no longer sustain civilization as we know it.1 The half-century-old MIT analysis … Read more