Quartz Countertops Can Be Perfectly Safe If Made Following Regulations. But That Can Be A Big If.
The dust that can arise when the countertop is cut wrong can lead to severe lung disease or even death. In other environmental health news: air pollution, climate change and superfund sites.
NPR:
Factory-Made Quartz Countertops Need To Be Cut Safely To Control Silica Dust
Every day, 20 to 30 trucks roll into a factory in Minnesota. They're filled with quartz — some of it like a powder, and some of it like sparkling little pebbles, in big white sacks. "It's about 30 million pounds of quartz a month," says Marty Davis, the CEO of Cambria, a company that manufactures material for kitchen and bathroom countertops. "About a million pounds a day." (Greenfieldboyce, 12/2)
The New York Times:
See How The World’s Most Polluted Air Compares With Your City’s
We visualized the damaging, tiny particles that wreak havoc on human health. From the Bay Area to New Delhi, see how the world’s worst pollution compares with your local air. (Popovich, Migliozzi, Patanjali, Singhvi and Huang, 12/2)
The New York Times:
Teaching Resilience In The Face Of Climate Change
Damariya Carlisle, age 9, jumped as an instructor hauled a crab pot onto the steel deck of the barge docked on the Elizabeth River, a Chesapeake tributary in Norfolk, Va. She marveled at the Atlantic blue crabs’ claws but worried they might pinch her. The visit was part of a fourth-grade class trip in October. “They get to see and feel real crabs,” said Janet Goldbach Ehmer, an educator with the Elizabeth River Project who pulled the trap from the water. (Zeitlin, 12/2)
NPR:
Montana Residents Ask Supreme Court To Allow Cleanup Beyond Superfund Requirements
Close to 100 rural Montanans are taking on one of the largest corporations in the world Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court. Residents of Opportunity and Crackerville, Mont., say the Atlantic Richfield Company — owned by BP — needs to go beyond what federal Superfund law requires and clean up arsenic pollution leftover from a century of mining. (Mott, 12/3)
