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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: toxic waste

toxic waste stories: 9 news summaries
fired up

 Cigarette Butts Are 
 Toxic Waste: Study 

Cigarette-soaked water kills fish

Nov 9, 09 5:30 PM CST
(Newser) - The chemicals in cigarette butts are lethal to fish, and the finding is bolstering researchers who want coffin nails classified as toxic waste. San Diego State University researchers submerged filters from smoked cigarettes in tanks of water for 24 hours, then added fish. Within 5 days, half the fish died.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
pollution • smoking • ocean • fish • carcinogens • toxic waste • cigarette

UK Gags Guardian, but
Twitter Airs Suppressed Story

Social media site explodes with toxic waste scandal

Oct 13, 09 6:07 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Guardian has been slapped with an unprecedented gag order forbidding it from reporting on a question in the British parliament, as well as who asked the question and why it's being gagged. The paper says constitutional rights are being infringed upon and it's already suing—but meanwhile, the suppressed... More »

MORE ABOUT:
United Kingdom • censorship • toxic waste • Ivory Coast • Twitter • social media • Guardian • Trafigura

Oil Giant Tries to Settle Biggest- Ever UK Lawsuit

Trafigura offers deal
to Africans sickened
by toxic sludge

Sep 17, 09 8:49 AM CDT
(Newser) - A British multinational has offered a multimillion-dollar payout to settle a case involving toxic pollution in the Ivory Coast, the Independent reports. A contractor working for oil trading firm Trafigura dumped hundreds of tons of toxic sludge around Abidjan in 2006, sickening tens of thousands. Some were permanently disfigured, and... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Africa • lawsuit • toxic waste • Britain • oil companies • Ivory Coast • Trafigura • Abidjan

(Newser) - Britain is accused of flouting international law by dumping toxic industrial and medical waste in Brazil and Ghana, the Times of London reports. Brazilian authorities were outraged to find over 1,000 tons of hazardous waste in 90 shipping containers labeled as holding recyclable plastic. "It is disgraceful that... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Brazil • garbage • toxic waste • Britain • Ghana

Tennessee Tests Massive Sludge Spill for Toxins

Huge spill of coal ash has locals worried

Dec 25, 08 5:02 AM CST
(Newser) - EPA officials are working through Christmas running tests on a river of sludge that inundated 400 acres in Tennessee, the Tennessean reports. The gloop, coal ash waste that spilled from a power plant retention pond early Monday, is suspected of containing high levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
coal • Tennessee • toxic waste • Tennessee Valley Authority • TVA

 River of Sludge 
 Wipes Out 
 Tenn. Homes 

Hundreds of acres look like a moonscape after coal plant's pond collapses

Dec 24, 08 4:43 AM CST
(Newser) - A 500 million gallon spill of potentially toxic goop escaped from a Tennessee power plant to destroy the landscape, wreck 15 homes and contaminate local rivers, reports CNN. The sludgy residue of coal burning busted through the walls of a containing pond. Up to 400 acres have been coated in... More »

MORE ABOUT:
coal • Tennessee • toxic waste • Tennessee Valley Authority • coal power

OPINION

 Artists Are Making
 Junk—Literally 

Despite greenie claims, they flush chemicals, abandon art pieces

May 30, 08 8:25 PM CDT
(Newser) - Beware the scruffy artists at the corner cafe—they may be serial polluters and not even know it, Laurie Fendrich writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Many painters, tree-huggers by claim, will flush chemicals down the drain, and ignore the carbon footprint of their synthetic pigments. They just... More »

MORE ABOUT:
art • landfill • toxic chemicals • artist • toxic waste • environmental damage

Deep, Dark Secrets Indeed

New books shed some light on immense, unexplored ocean depths

Dec 8, 07 7:31 AM CST
(Newser) - Though the first deep-sea expedition took place in 1931, humans still know little about what goes on miles below sea level. What we do know is startlingly strange, Tim Flannery writes in a look at two new volumes in the New York Review of Books—and a rising tide of... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Atlantic Ocean • Pacific Ocean • ocean • fish • toxic waste • sewage

Scientists Work on Life From Scratch

Creation of an artificial organism
could be 3 to 10 years away

Aug 20, 07 4:30 PM CDT
(Newser) - A synthetic life form constructed in a lab from basic components could make its debut in the next 3 to 10 years, scientists say. Researchers are hard at work on creating a cell, which hopefully would be able to reproduce on its own. "It's going to be a big... More »

MORE ABOUT:
global warming • science • artificial life • cell • synthetic life • toxic waste

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