"The world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute - and the industry is fighting hard to keep it that way."

"Green groups are cheering a proposed rule released by U.S. EPA this week that they hope will close a dangerous hazardous waste recycling loophole created in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration."

"In a win for the coal industry, a House committee approved a bill Tuesday that would prevent federal regulation of coal ash as hazardous waste."

"Millions of barrels of salty, toxic wastewater from natural-gas wells in Pennsylvania are coming into Ohio despite efforts to keep it at bay."

"The plastic bag industry, increasingly on the defensive as municipal bag bans proliferate, has gone on the attack against ChicoBag, a competitor that bills itself as an eco-friendly alternative. A federal lawsuit in South Carolina accuses ChicoBag of illegal trash-talking about plastic bag waste."

"The source is a Coachella Valley soil-recycling plant on tribal land, regulators say. Operators defend their enterprise, but agencies have cracked down."

The nation's largest advanced sewage treatement plant, Blue Plains in Washington, DC, is spending $400 million to upgrade its sludge-processing to produce "Class A" fertilizer. Critics say the cooked sludge may be free of pathogens, but the real issue may be nutrients like nitrogen or phosphorus, heavy metals like cadmium or lead, and toxic chemicals like PCBs and perfluorochemicals.